AprilS - 4:42 am on Apr 27, 2004 (gmt 0)

I used to use the service of a SEO company. However, after a year I wasn't very impressed so I've taken that on myself (what a headache). However, I'm going through all of our pages and noticed they used A LOT of different types of meta tags (besides the usual - keywords, description, etc).

Does anyone know exactly what the purpose of meta tags like the ones below are for....who uses them (spiders)...and if they help in any way?

<META NAME="VW96.objecttype"
<META NAME="DC.Title"
<META NAME="DC.Subject"
<META NAME="DC.Description"
<META NAME="DC.Coverage.PlaceName"

I've looked online and kind find a "definition" of these meta tags and why someone would use them. They seem more like a waste of space and I'm thinking about yanking them, but just wanted to check and see if they really are useful.