aeiouy - 7:45 pm on Nov 10, 2005 (gmt 0)

I get Google Alerts and find many "scrapper" sites that are linking to me. Why doesn't Google come up with a way for the us to BLOCK these links from being associated with our sites...say if they link to you without permission.

Google would do that if they could. The problem is determining who "owns" the content? What if the scrapper site tells google to have you stop using "their" content before you make your claim? Then you are left out in the cold. That is kind of the crux of the issue. Defining ownership is simply a very difficult task, and not one that any algo, at this point, is very good at figuring out.