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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

#71

Post by beedogs »

surfingdino wrote: post #42
chc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He's not a US citizen, he doesn't have funds to fight Facebook and he cannot count on the lawyers to help him for free. They used disproportionate force against him. I'm sure he will remember that lesson.

If he's not a US citizen and he isn't in the US, what's he got to lose by continuing to distribute the plugin? Any judgement against him would be pretty much pointless.

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

#72

Post by smsm42 »

Natsu wrote: post #67
chc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence that Facebook actually would force him out, just that some lawyer decided to include some text in a nastygram. That was the point, as I understood it.

Why do you believe that Facebook is willing to sick their lawyers on him, but unwilling to shut down his Facebook pages?

I would assume somebody in FB just said the lawyers "this guy is using our API in a way we do not condone, send him C&D so he would stop" and the lawyers made it as broad as possible since if they make it too broad nothing bad happens but if it's too narrow and the guy finds a way to wiggle around it it's their fail. Nobody in FB probably cares if the same guy would ever post a status on FB or share a picture of lolcats. They just wanted the plugin to be removed. If they also spread some fear around so nobody else does it too - it's even better for them, even though it's not what they probably cared about too much.

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

#73

Post by DanBC »

feralchimp wrote: post #54

1. FB's lawyers sent him a letter asking him to stop. No more, no less. 2. Being 'banned from FB' is not really a legally defined classification for human beings, and HR organizations are paid to care about actual legal reality. 3. If he's not using FB APIs or other licensed information, how are FB's options for "further escalation" anything more than a louder brand of saber rattling? All it takes is one good lawyer…

> On what legal theory could FB hope to receive damages?

Possibly: Increased costs of support to 130,000 people using unapproved software in combination to Facebook, who get weird results from the software when Facebook updates something and blame Facebook not the software, and who bitch and moan to Facebook for support? (Obviously most people don't bother with support, and they just complain to friends.)

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

#74

Post by fauigerzigerk »

feralchimp wrote: post #54

1. FB's lawyers sent him a letter asking him to stop. No more, no less. 2. Being 'banned from FB' is not really a legally defined classification for human beings, and HR organizations are paid to care about actual legal reality. 3. If he's not using FB APIs or other licensed information, how are FB's options for "further escalation" anything more than a louder brand of saber rattling? All it takes is one good lawyer…

The problem with real life David v Goliath cases is the disproportionate distribution of risk. An individual losing a court battle against a big coroporation may leave him (and possibly his family) financially crippled for the rest of his life. That's why civil law is a complete farce.

In this particular case I see very little justification for even trying to play David in spite of Facebook's grotesque overreaction.

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

#75

Post by ig1 »

shadowmint wrote: post #52
ig1 wrote: post #38

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…

Have you ever read the Facebook TOS fully? I challenge you to find a single game on the site that does not violate one of their extremely vaguely worded clauses. This is basically just a "We can, for any reason, at any time, ban you. Suck it up." That's why I've lost all interest in the Facebook platform. Too much of this nonsense going on.

If you don't agree with the terms you can,

1) not develop for Facebook 2) break the terms and accept the risks involved 3) come to an agreement with Facebook with different terms

Plenty of people have taken each of these routes

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

#77

Post by joemoon »

Agathos wrote: post #16
ww520 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that limits his chances of finding a programmer job, his talent is very limited.

In the future, all restaurants are Taco Bell and all computer systems are Facebook.

For anyone curious, this a reference to Demolition Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFiDoOgRTpk

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

#78

Post by Natsu »

smsm42 wrote: post #72
Natsu wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you believe that Facebook is willing to sick their lawyers on him, but unwilling to shut down his Facebook pages?

I would assume somebody in FB just said the lawyers "this guy is using our API in a way we do not condone, send him C&D so he would stop" and the lawyers made it as broad as possible since if they make it too broad nothing bad happens but if it's too narrow and the guy finds a way to wiggle around it it's their fail. Nobody in FB probably cares if the same guy would ever post a status on FB or share a picture of lolc…

Yeah, sure, I get that they just want to scare him and would prefer not to escalate to legal action. But they don't need a court order to block him from Facebook or to take down his pages. If they're out to "spread some fear", why wouldn't they do that as well?

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

#79

Post by jfoutz »

icebraining wrote: post #46
jfoutz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be picky, wouldn't the users of the plugin be responsible for violating the tos? I'm sure he tests his plugin on facebook, so, bam. gone. but... shouldn't the 135,000 fans who (presumably) use his browser plugin be banned as well? They are clearly violating the tos.

Well, a ToS is not law, so there's no obligation to enforce it, so it's up to FB to decide, and I don't see what would they gain from that. They got the app gone, they don't really benefit from having 135000 more people hating them.

IANAL,

Is that true? I thought if a company made claims like that, they sort of had to do stuff about it. it seems like the dev could show, here's hundreds of thousands of other people doing exactly the same thing, why single him out? I think those tos claims are more use-it-or-lose-it kinds of rules.

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

#80

Post by ig1 »

jfoutz wrote: post #79
icebraining wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a ToS is not law, so there's no obligation to enforce it, so it's up to FB to decide, and I don't see what would they gain from that. They got the app gone, they don't really benefit from having 135000 more people hating them.

IANAL, Is that true? I thought if a company made claims like that, they sort of had to do stuff about it. it seems like the dev could show, here's hundreds of thousands of other people doing exactly the same thing, why single him out? I think those tos claims are more use-it-or-lose-it kinds of rules.

Nope, it's civil law, your basically free to arbitrarily decide how and who to enforce it against (subject to anti-discriminatory laws and the like)
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