Experts Say ACAP Specs Not Up To Snuff

Publishers have come together to develop the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP), a technical standard intended to dictate to search engines what they can index and what they can't. One problem, though, as more technical minds have noted, is that the standard isn't quite technical enough.

It's technical deficiencies may stem from the protocol – intended as an extension of robots.txt – being developed by publishers, not professional techies.

"The specs clearly weren't written by people with any experience in writing technical standards," writes
Indeed, if you look at the list of members, you'll notice a trend: it's all publishers, many of which have had their legal conflicts with Google especially. It consists of the Associated Press, Association of American Publishers, Agence-France Presse, among many, many others.
ACAP homepage, the standard is intended to become a universal permissions protocol that allows content owners to communicate permissions for access and use of online content. In short, it's intended as a way for publishers to tell search engines exactly what can and cannot be done with their content.

And while the idea might be acceptable and even have "promise,"
Some might note a hint of sarcasm there.