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Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

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Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#51

Post by cmiles74 »

ikeboy wrote: post #40
cybwraith wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a great analogy. The store owner can't just get your arrested/charged with a crime if they don't tell you that you aren't allowed first. Http lacks such a human mechanism. The closest thing I can think of in the standard is the response code. So your server replying 200 OK should implicitly be considered permission to access that resource legally until it stops replying with that code.

robots.txt. If all requests sent by robots would clearly identify themselves, the server would easily block all of them. But if they fake their user agent to look like a browser and ignore robots.txt, that's not a good faith request and they shouldn't be able to plead ignorance.

I don't believe there's a law requiring the honoring of the robots.txt file. People and services honor the file out of a sense of good manners, not a legal requirement.

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#52

Post by xoa »

rayiner wrote: post #24

There is a difference between public property and private property that is made available to the public. Just because the cafe on the corner has its door open and lets you stroll in off the street doesn't mean that the property owner doesn't retain the right to exclude people. And if the property owner revokes your permission, then going onto the property again can be a crime (trespass).[1] Servers are no different.…

>Just because the cafe on the corner has its door open and lets you stroll in off the street doesn't mean that the property owner doesn't retain the right to exclude people.

While I don't know about the EFF's overall argument, as an absolute statement I don't think you are correct here. In the USA at least, "Public Accommodations" (which your cafe example would be) are in fact subject to regulations that limit their ability to discriminate, require accommodations for the disabled, etc., and these apply regardless of whether it's public or private property. Something that is open to the general public is different in law then purely private property (private clubs and religious institutions are specifically excluded from federal law, but that's it). There are also going to be different expectations of privacy and default access levels.

Physical to digital analogies are often a poor match anyway, but in this case I'm not sure even if we accept one that it fully supports your point. Private property open to the public is not legally the same as purely private limited access property in terms of who it may exclude, when it may exclude, and why (as well as lots of other standards).

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#53

Post by jimktrains2 »

ikeboy wrote: post #40
cybwraith wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a great analogy. The store owner can't just get your arrested/charged with a crime if they don't tell you that you aren't allowed first. Http lacks such a human mechanism. The closest thing I can think of in the standard is the response code. So your server replying 200 OK should implicitly be considered permission to access that resource legally until it stops replying with that code.

robots.txt. If all requests sent by robots would clearly identify themselves, the server would easily block all of them. But if they fake their user agent to look like a browser and ignore robots.txt, that's not a good faith request and they shouldn't be able to plead ignorance.

What is a robot? Why is the User Agent even important? It's not a standardized value. I could send "User-Agent: ikeboy" and it's perfectly valid.

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#54

Post by rayiner »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #50
rayiner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's exactly what happened here: > LinkedIn sent hiQ cease and desist letters warning that any future access of its website, even the public portions, were “without permission and without authorization” and thus violations of the CFAA. The EFF's point about terms of service is a good one, but also irrelevant. Terms of service don't provide adequate notice that someone's implied license to access a website has b…

In the coffee shop example, would this be like trying to sue someone who is banned from your shop from looking in the window at your price list? In this case, it's more like LinkedIn is attempting to get a PFA order, but I think they need to show abuse, not just looking in the window at the menu you posted on the window?

No because that's not how computers work. Computers don't just emit radiation into the aether that anyone can capture. Accessing a website involves making a physical piece of property do something in response to your HTTP request.

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#55

Post by [deleted] »

UncleEntity wrote: post #35
ynniv wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trespass is not illegal until the owner informs you that you are not wanted. Private information that has accidentally been made public is like an unmarked field. It may be private, it may be public, but until the owner takes specific action it is not illegal to use the field. If the owner decides to take action, that action cannot be retroactively applied, even if there is a record of who used the field. Regardless,…

The difference is Linkedin knows they're scraping the site, asked them to stop and is now trying to force them to stop through the courts (in a really bad way).

[deleted]

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#56

Post by jimktrains2 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #47
jimktrains2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but if you're never told to leave the coffee shop or no action is taken to prevent you from entering again, say being told your banned, and you continue to walk in and use the coffee shop with no one saying anything, has your permission to enter really been revoked, even if the owner thinks, and only thinks, it has been?

FTA: "LinkedIn sent hiQ cease and desist letters warning that any future access of its website, even the public portions, were “without permission and without authorization” and thus violations of the CFAA." They were formally told to leave the coffee shop and not return.

No, they were told to stop looking in the window. Can you ask someone not to look at the menu you posted in your sidewalk window? I don't think that'd hold up in court.

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#57

Post by UncleEntity »

ynniv wrote: post #42
UncleEntity wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is Linkedin knows they're scraping the site, asked them to stop and is now trying to force them to stop through the courts (in a really bad way).

Google, Bing, etc are also scraping their site, and I see no cease and desist order there. Make Googlebot authenticate itself, or admit the data is publicly accessible.

The Whataburger I went to for breakfast this morning gives some homeless people free coffee and asks others to leave...

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#58

Post by ikeboy »

cmiles74 wrote: post #51
ikeboy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

robots.txt. If all requests sent by robots would clearly identify themselves, the server would easily block all of them. But if they fake their user agent to look like a browser and ignore robots.txt, that's not a good faith request and they shouldn't be able to plead ignorance.

I don't believe there's a law requiring the honoring of the robots.txt file. People and services honor the file out of a sense of good manners, not a legal requirement.

It doesn't have to be a specific law. It is a rebuttal to a claim of "I had no idea I shouldn't have requested millions of pages from that site".

If you scrape a site that prohibits it in robots.txt, that should be considered notice that they don't want that, for whatever relevant law. (I don't know if this argument would hold up in court, IANAL.)

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#59

Post by mcguire »

rayiner wrote: post #24

There is a difference between public property and private property that is made available to the public. Just because the cafe on the corner has its door open and lets you stroll in off the street doesn't mean that the property owner doesn't retain the right to exclude people. And if the property owner revokes your permission, then going onto the property again can be a crime (trespass).[1] Servers are no different.…

I am not a lawyer and I do not have citations to back this up, but I suspect that, if you put up a billboard and then send cease and desist letters to people looking at it, or taking pictures of it, or whatever analogy to programs examining public web pages you like, then you would be laughed out of court.

Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime

#60

Post by ynniv »

Access that does not require authentication should never be a crime. If LinkedIn wants the courts to intervene, they must require authentication for their data. If they also want Google to scrape their site, they must require Googlebot to authenticate itself.
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