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A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

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Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#81

Post by Steeeve »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #59
mcherm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it had no basis for doing so Several lower level judges disagreed with you. Although I think that the CANSPAM act ought not apply, there is no basis to claim that this was clearly settled law being ignored to make this into a malicious action.

And high judges agree. Facebook claimed[0] that emails it sent to its users were misleading, partly, because Facebook inserted "Thanks,\nThe Facebook Team" into messages it sent out as a result of Power.com's actions. Facebook claimed[0], 64. The message, drafted by Power.com, is signed by "The Facebook Team", which is both misleading and false. If the findings [1] of the higher judges are correct, then it appears th…

The message is at page 10 of the PDF on link[0] above, page 12 of the complaint. (pdf and complaint page numbers don't match up)

It's clear to me that this was a spam/phishing message.

1. Comes from @facebookmail.com

2. Signed "The Facebook Team"

3. Includes only links to facebook.

4. In the footer, "Want to control which messages you receive from facebook..." facebook link.

--- Now, they obviously created a facebook event as a promotion and invited people on facebook to that event in order to generate those messages, so there is a bit of a grey area, but it's clearly a power.com email and there's no message of power.com other than:

Event: Bring 100 Friends and win 100 bucks

What: Reunion

Host: Power

Start Time: date

End Time: date

Where: Power

--- It's an unethical use of Facebook's systems at the very least, and spells out a pretty big hole (hopefully filled by now) that opens facebook users up to scams because the originator is obfuscated.

Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#82

Post by nchelluri »

Wouldn't it (or couldn't) it be a violation of TOS to share your FB password with another site?

Does FB now have an option like Google to export your data? I thought that was a nice touch on Google's part; I vaguely remember reading it was championed by some people in the company who really wanted to avoid locking people in out of their own moral convictions.

I confess to not seeing the bigger picture here: I don't see how all of this can be equated to locking a user's data into Facebook. Would it be against TOS to write a FB app that crawled a user's graph and downloaded all of their data?

Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#83

Post by thaumasiotes »

jedberg wrote: post #73
the_watcher wrote: post #71

This highlights two major issues, to me: * Wow does the CFAA need reform. * With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are. It's not a knock on them at all - it's hard to keep up for those of us working in the industry. I'm not sure what the best solution is outside of trying to make sure that the laws are as correctly formulated as possible, and ev…

> With the rate that tech is advancing, it's becoming a problem how unfamiliar with it many in the justice system are. People say that a lot. But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot). The court has a solution for this -- they have expert witnesses and amicus briefs. The problem is that technologists are allergic to polit…

> But yet you don't really hear doctors saying "how can a judge hear a case about a medical issue!" (look maybe some say that but not a lot).

I hear this all the time. (I am a doctor's son.) Heck, you could probably get judges to say the same thing; they've completely abdicated on the question of whether something is or isn't legally-permissible medical care. The legal question, when you are sued for malpractice, is whether you conformed to "the local standard of care", which is different everywhere. If the local standard of care is obviously harmful to patients, that's not your fault. They should have been local to somewhere else. Did something bad happen to your patient by chance? If you didn't conform to the standard of care, you're probably at fault, regardless of whether it could have been related to something you did.

This situation obtains because judges are incapable of judging medical issues. Judges know it, doctors know it, and I know it, but I guess you didn't know it.

See also the discussion a while ago about how forensic science is basically just 100% fraudulent court testimony, but the courts are too reliant on that to give it up.

Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#84

Post by sjg007 »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #36
Sacho wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, what payout? The 9th circuit essentially ruled that his attempts to access Facebook servers after the cease-and-desist letter were illegal. Unless I'm reading this wrong, he lost, and is criminally liable.

Facebook brought a malicious action under the CANSPAM act when it had no basis for doing so. That action, in part, resulted in the loss of Vachani's business and livelihood. Facebook will need to compensate for the loss they caused.

I guess the question will be can Facebook block a user if they act on the behalf of another user. It seems unlikely.

Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#85

Post by downandout »

War_Machine wrote: post #43
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #13

Orin Kerr is the country's leading attorney on Computer Crime Law(1) and The Volokh Conspiracy writers are a powerhouse in Constitutional Law generally. Its almost certainly too late for Vachani and Power Ventures; Facebook have destroyed them, and any ruling is only symbolic, but for the rest of us, a correct ruling is essential for the future of a free Internet. Here is Orin Kerr writing about Power Ventures: https…

After Power's IP addresses were blocked by Facebook, couldn't Power use the user as proxy to access Facebook instead? In other words, have the user (through some Power provided tool I suppose) access Facebook and feed Power the information it wants to send.

The problem is that this probably violates Facebook's TOS. Enabling a TOS violation for users as a business model would make for a pretty easy tortious interference lawsuit by Facebook against Power.

Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#87

Post by ebzlo »

nchelluri wrote: post #82

Wouldn't it (or couldn't) it be a violation of TOS to share your FB password with another site? Does FB now have an option like Google to export your data? I thought that was a nice touch on Google's part; I vaguely remember reading it was championed by some people in the company who really wanted to avoid locking people in out of their own moral convictions. I confess to not seeing the bigger picture here: I don't s…

You can export your data: https://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/

Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#88

Post by gondo »

Isn't this similar case as Zenefits vs ADP? Power Ventures accessing Facebook on behalf of their users, same way as Zenefits was accessing ADP? I did not follow the Z vs A case, just barely remember that it happened.

Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#89

Post by jsprogrammer »

Steeeve wrote: post #81
jsprogrammer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And high judges agree. Facebook claimed[0] that emails it sent to its users were misleading, partly, because Facebook inserted "Thanks,\nThe Facebook Team" into messages it sent out as a result of Power.com's actions. Facebook claimed[0], 64. The message, drafted by Power.com, is signed by "The Facebook Team", which is both misleading and false. If the findings [1] of the higher judges are correct, then it appears th…

The message is at page 10 of the PDF on link[0] above, page 12 of the complaint. (pdf and complaint page numbers don't match up) It's clear to me that this was a spam/phishing message. 1. Comes from @facebookmail.com 2. Signed "The Facebook Team" 3. Includes only links to facebook. 4. In the footer, "Want to control which messages you receive from facebook..." facebook link. --- Now, they obviously created a facebook…

The message was determined not to be spam, but regardless, Facebook constructed and sent that message.

As far as I can tell from these documents, Power setup a Facebook event, then Facebook added it's own text (eg. "The Facebook Team") to the event message and sent it as an email to its own users. Then, Facebook took down Vachani based on those emails.

Re: A Man Who Stood Up To Facebook

#90

Post by al_chemist »

paulddraper wrote: post #30
ht85 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, only door-to-door soliciting to a point where you have to jostle a crowd of people whenever you try to exit your property through the main door, and they try everything in their power not to budge.

> try everything in their power not to budge The first part I get, but this I don't. Deleting an email is a mouseclick. A lot easier than getting the pest control guy off my doorstep.

> The first part I get, but this I don't. Deleting an email is a mouseclick.

If you really believe it, please share your primary e-mail address here.

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