Wow, I never realized the severity of this problem until today when I googled "access properties from another EAR". The #1 result was this question from SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2044895/how-to-access-application-xml-file-of-an-ear-deployed-to-ibm-websphere-6-1 Sure enough, the number 16 result is: http://efreedom.com/Question/1-2044895/Access-Applicationxml-File-EAR-Deployed-IBM-WebSphere-61 Which is a 100% copy of the StackOverflow content. The efreedom.com domain hardly even bothers to change the URL!!