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Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

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Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#31

Post by therandomguy »

vectorpush wrote: post #20
JonnieCache wrote: post #2

>but it also seriously limits his chances of finding employment as a programmer. That doesn't sound quite right. TOO HOT FOR FACEBOOK!!! could look great on the right résumé. The whole thing is just what we've come to expect from facebook by now tbh.

True, but it does suck to be banned from the ubiquitous platform in which you've spent time becoming highly specialized. edit: Apparently he developed a browser plugin that doesn't use Facebook's API, so it looks like this may actually be a decent endorsement.

Highly specialized in facebook API? If you are a half decent developer you can easily pick up any API in few days if not in few hours.

Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#33

Post by emc11 »

surfingdino wrote: post #28
bennytjia wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that 1. a developer could create a working product that is live and used by a lot of users. 2. a developer could create something that draws a significant attention from a huge company like facebook since it turns out that the product has significant impact that it's actually all over the news when facebook tries to limit it. These to me would not be a strong reason for hurting a chance of employment. On the…

These things can bite you when you least expect them. Say you hired him to write a web app and later on the users (or investors, or clients) want to have FB login. Now you need to fire the guy or separate him from the FB login implementation, testing, and use. The guy's got a huge target mark on his ass.

Maybe I'm missing something, but generally when doing any type of Facebook/social integration type work, I'm not using my personal account, but rather one dedicated to that purpose (i.e. the client's). How in the world would Facebook know (big brother, tin foil hats, etc. etc.) if this guy is running API calls and send in their secret police? It seems incredibly unlikely to me that, by working through a client (or even a fake profile) and taking part in the thousands++ API calls that occur daily, that there would be any issue here.

Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#34

Post by fleitz »

surfingdino wrote: post #28
bennytjia wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that 1. a developer could create a working product that is live and used by a lot of users. 2. a developer could create something that draws a significant attention from a huge company like facebook since it turns out that the product has significant impact that it's actually all over the news when facebook tries to limit it. These to me would not be a strong reason for hurting a chance of employment. On the…

These things can bite you when you least expect them. Say you hired him to write a web app and later on the users (or investors, or clients) want to have FB login. Now you need to fire the guy or separate him from the FB login implementation, testing, and use. The guy's got a huge target mark on his ass.

No it's just a cease and desist letter, even if he did comply its not a binding agreement. And even if he did agree facebooks systems are so automated that he would likely recieve an invite to use their systems which would nullify the ban. People banned from casinos often receive invitations to visit the casino which nullify the ban via the casinos marketing efforts.

Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#35

Post by a_a_r_o_n »

ww520 wrote: post #21
surfingdino wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers often do background checks and if they find out he was banned by Facebook that may work against him.

How do employers find out the ban? I thought it's a private matter. Does Facebook have a list of all banned developers?

I found it and I wasn't even looking for it.

Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#36

Post by chc »

surfingdino wrote: post #29
anothermachine wrote: post #26

He wasn't "banned for life". He received a "cease and desist" letter from Facebook's lawyer that threatened (bluffed) to escalate their challenge against the game. It's classic scare tactic employed by lawyers for unethical clients.

He quotes "I must cease and not access the Facebook site(s) and/or services for any reason whatsoever." There is not EOL date in his statement.

It's not the "for life" anothermachine is disputing, it's the "banned." What he received sounds like a simple nastygram. I could send you a letter demanding that you give me your house, but that wouldn't mean that you are obliged to do so.

Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#37

Post by joe_the_user »

Hmm,

There is a little more on this here:

http://blog.games.com/2012/01/06/facebook-friendly-gaming-si...

"...the plug-in had racked up an impressive following of players "in-the-know," who kept the project a secret for fear of such an outcome..."

Maybe such a plugin shouldn't be disallowed by Facebook but it seems like it wasn't surprising to many people that it was...

Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#38

Post by ig1 »

Facebook terms of usage https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

Section 3.2:

"You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission."

Seems writing a bot that automatically takes actions on a user's behalf would clearly violate the Facebook terms.

Banning bots is perfectly reasonable behaviour for any site, a badly written bot, especially one that's distributed to large numbers of users could very easily cause a denial-of-service attack because of sloppy programming.

Facebook probably should have just dropped the developer a friendly email rather than a letter from their lawyers and banning the developer might be going over-far, but there's nothing wrong with them wanting to ban the plugin.

Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#39

Post by sdizdar »

I have a question which is more legal related. It is "public" secret that US government (and other governments) have and use persona management softwares which clearly violate Facebook terms of usage. The question is: does Facebook has any legal standing against that? Can Facebook or other social networks sue government for offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people"?

Re: Facebook intimidates developer, bans him and his code for life

#40

Post by dangrossman »

sdizdar wrote: post #39

I have a question which is more legal related. It is "public" secret that US government (and other governments) have and use persona management softwares which clearly violate Facebook terms of usage. The question is: does Facebook has any legal standing against that? Can Facebook or other social networks sue government for offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unite...
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