Robots

[StarDust]

Hello to the real person reading this thread Can you explain who/what is a robot? If, for example, you check the current visitors of this forum, you see many Robots and I heard of the term many times. But I really dont fully understand how these 'Robots' arrived and invaded the internet. Who/what are they? My thought it is some programming code used to scan and flag words or behavior. But who are controlling these robots, or perhaps, who is thier creator?

 

[Finished]

Hello to the real person reading this thread Can you explain who/what is a robot? If, for example, you check the current visitors of this forum, you see many Robots and I heard of the term many times. But I really dont fully understand how these 'Robots' arrived and invaded the internet. Who/what are they? My thought it is some programming code used to scan and flag words or behavior. But who are controlling these robots, or perhaps, who is thier creator?

They are used to mine data from sites that buy, sell, and use data like Google, Amazon, etc. They can quickly pick apart these forums to see which words or groups of words are used and how frequently they are used.

For instance, lets say you are a big time stock investor. You want to know what the latest buzz is about. You can aim your robot at the investment forums. The results come back that XXXXX has been discussed the most and possibly why. Then you can use that to buy or sell stocks.

The robots are easy to create and use. Storage is super cheap now. So, the information brokers are targeting anything and everything they can.