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Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

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Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#171
post #18
post #2

This is positive news. It seems like the more liberal approach taken when protocols were written is being challenged more by young users who grew up under more stable rules that accepted terms of service as very strong. When I was growing up you went by what the protocol allowed. If an http response came back you have access, if it prompted for credentials, then you didn’t have access. The mere idea that a web server…

I continue to be shocked that Twitter convinced an entire generation of software developers that you need to obtain something called an "API key"--which can somehow be refused or even revoked once granted--in order to write a client for their protocol. "Back in my day", we just reverse engineered the official client and used whatever algorithm it used to talk to the server and called the war won :/.

It’s quite lame. Think about how there aren’t even Facebook 3rd party clients and they actively block any scraping. Google also isn’t developer friendly for using the stuff they don’t want you to. Few APIs to their sites.

These companies are pretty different than the old school put up an api.

If DNS was designed by Facebook or google it would make a dedicated client and refuse some people who used too much.

It seems the war of protocol vs systems is going poorly for protocols.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one regulation that could save a nation from FB, Twitter and Instagram is to ban advertising. All of it. Ban all advertising anywhere for any reason.

You may not advertise this proposed regulation.

Please learn the difference between political speech and advertising.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not even remotely true (incidentally this would be illegal in the UK and a court would grant an injunction on publication under breach of confidence, precisely because it's such a shitty thing to do https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_confidence_in_Englis... ). Yes but they would not charge you with theft. Which includes "the intention to permanently deprive"... Copying someone's private data is not thef…

So you narrowly redefine theft to not include intellectual property or any non-physical good. IANAL - but I don't think this would fly in any jurisdiction anywhere. Is this definition specific to a country whose laws I'm not familiar with?

No I apply the actual definition of theft....

I never said that copyright infringement or copying and publishing personal data is OK morally or legally. I just said that they are different crimes.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not even remotely true (incidentally this would be illegal in the UK and a court would grant an injunction on publication under breach of confidence, precisely because it's such a shitty thing to do https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_confidence_in_Englis... ). Yes but they would not charge you with theft. Which includes "the intention to permanently deprive"... Copying someone's private data is not thef…

So you narrowly redefine theft to not include intellectual property or any non-physical good. IANAL - but I don't think this would fly in any jurisdiction anywhere. Is this definition specific to a country whose laws I'm not familiar with?

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