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opportunity for human error. Checking online auctions for products to resell could easily consume one or two hours a day—up to 25 percent of a 40-hour work week. At that rate, someone with an annual salary of $80,000 would cost a company $20,000 a year to procure inventory (without a webbot). That cost does not include the cost of opportunities lost while the employee manually surfs auction sites. In scenarios like this, it's easy to see how product acquisition with a webbot saves a lot of money—even for a small business with small requirements. Additionally, a webbot may uncover bargains missed by someone manually searching the auction site.

Protect Intellectual Property

You can write a webbot to protect your online intellectual property. For example, suppose you spent many hours writing a JavaScript program. It has commercial value, and you license the script for others to use for a fee. You've been selling the program for a few months and have learned that some people are downloading and using your program without paying for it. You write a webbot to find websites that are using your JavaScript program without your permission. This webbot searches the Internet and makes a list of URLs that reference your JavaScript file. In a separate step, the webbot does a whois lookup on the domain to determine the owner from the domain registrar.[9] If the domain is not one of your registered users, the webbot compiles contact information from the domain registrar so you can contact the parties who are using unlicensed copies of your code.

Monitor Opportunities

You can also write webbots that alert you when particular opportunities arise. For example, let's say that you have an interest in acquiring a Jack Russell Terrier.[10] Instead of devoting part of each day to searching for your new dog, you decide to write a webbot to search for you and notify you when it finds a dog meeting your requirements. Your webbot performs a daily search of the websites of local animal shelters and dog rescue organizations. It parses the contents of the sites, looking for your dog. When the webbot finds a Jack Russell Terrier, it sends you an email notification describing the dog and its location. The webbot also records this specific dog in its database, so it doesn't send additional notifications for the same dog in the future. This is a fairly common webbot task, which could be modified to automatically discover job listings, sports scores, or any other timely information.

Verify Access Rights on a Website

Webbots may prevent the potentially nightmarish situation that exists for any web developer who mistakenly gives one user access to another user's data. To avoid this situation, you could commission a webbot to verify that all users receive the correct access to your site. This webbot logs in to the site with every viable username and password. While acting on each user's behalf, the webbot accesses every available page and compares those pages to a list of appropriate pages for each user. If the webbot finds a user is inadvertently able to access something he or she shouldn't, that account is temporarily suspended until the problem is fixed. Every morning before you arrive at your office, the webbot emails a report of any irregularities it found the night before.

Create an Online Clipping Service

Suppose you're very vain, and you'd like a webbot to send an email to your mother every time a major news service mentions your name. However, since you're not vain enough to check all the main news websites on a regular basis, you write a webbot that accomplishes the task for you. This webbot accesses a collection of websites, including CNN, Forbes, and Fortune. You design your webbot to look only for articles that mention your name, and you employ an exclusion list to ignore all articles that contain words or phrases like shakedown, corruption, or money laundering. When the webbot finds an appropriate article, it automatically sends your mother an email with a link to the article. Your webbot also blind copies you on all emails it sends so you