Preservation Policy

Mission & Scope

1990 Web Archive is dedicated to the systematic preservation of early digital communication, web design, and interactive media from the birth of the World Wide Web (1990–1999). Our scope includes but is not limited to: static HTML pages, early CGI scripts, GeoCities/Angelfire personal sites, BBS gateways, early e-commerce prototypes, and digital art communities.

We prioritize cultural significance, technological novelty, and historical completeness over commercial value or contemporary relevance.

Core Preservation Principles

• Authenticity: All artifacts are preserved in their original format without modernization, CSS injection, or layout reinterpretation unless explicitly documented.
• Completeness: We capture full page trees, linked assets (images, MIDI, GIFs), and server responses (headers, HTTP versions) to ensure contextual integrity.
• Redundancy: Every archived entity is stored across three geographically distributed storage facilities with regular integrity verification.
• Provenance: Metadata records capture source URLs, crawl timestamps, referrers, and attribution where available.

Technical Standards & Formats

We adhere to open, non-proprietary standards to guarantee long-term accessibility:

Rendering environments use historically accurate software stacks (Netscape Navigator 3.0, Internet Explorer 4.0, Mosaic 3.0) via containerized emulation layers. No browser polyfills or modern DOM manipulation is applied to source artifacts.

Access & Usage Guidelines

Archived materials are made available for educational, research, and personal viewing purposes. Users must acknowledge the following:

1. Archived pages are presented exactly as captured. Broken links, missing assets, or deprecated scripts reflect historical conditions.
2. Direct hotlinking to archival assets is prohibited. Researchers must use our API or download bundles for academic use.
3. Attribution is required for published research, exhibitions, or media featuring archived content.

Rate Limiting & Fair Use

Automated scraping of the archive is restricted to approved academic partners. Standard user sessions are limited to 500 page views per hour to preserve system integrity for all researchers.

Copyright, DMCA & Takedown Requests

1990 Web Archive operates under educational fair use principles and digital preservation exemptions. We respect intellectual property rights and comply with valid legal requests:

• Copyright owners or authorized agents may request removal of specific pages by submitting a verified DMCA notice.
• We maintain a "preservation hold" process where legally sensitive content may be restricted from public viewing while remaining accessible to vetted researchers.
• All takedown actions are logged and preserved in an internal audit trail to maintain historical transparency.

We do not actively scan for copyright violations. Our crawlers operate passively on historically relevant domains and dead links.

Maintenance, Migration & Updates

Digital preservation is continuous. We conduct:

• Annual Integrity Audits: Checksum verification and bit-rot detection across all storage nodes.
• Format Migration Planning: Evaluation of emerging archival standards every 3 years to prevent format obsolescence.
• Policy Review: This document is reviewed biannually by our Preservation Ethics Board and technical stewards.