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Legally it might, I don't know. Morally, I'm not sure. 1. If they allowed all bots but disallowed all non-bots, that would raise questions of what defines a "

by azakai 11y ago

Legally it might, I don't know. Morally, I'm not sure. 1. If they allowed all bots but disallowed all non-bots, that would raise questions of what defines a "bot". Couldn't I write a personal bot that fetches the story for me? As a browser addon, even? 2. It's even more complex since allowing bots means they allow tools that provide the information to third parties, as the bots are not intended for private use by the bot maker. So the door is already open. 3. But in practice, it seems they favor certain bots. Is it ok that the WSJ lets Google do things Google's competitors cannot? Try to use the "web link" trick from HN on any other search engine, and it doesn't work in my experience. That seems anti-competitive and discriminatory in favor of the existing dominant entity in this space, Google.

mankyd 11y ago
> If they allowed all bots but disallowed all non-bots, that would raise questions of what defines a "bot". Maybe, but I think its a pretty easy distinction. They aren't even allowing all bots - they're allowing a white list of them. You're not just writing your own bot to get around it, you're pretending to be someone else's bot. > But in practice, it seems they favor certain bots. Is it ok that the WSJ lets Google do things Google's competitors cannot? That's the really important question. I personally have no context for answering except to say that I can see both sides argued. If you view their website as a physical store / private establishment, then I assume that they have every right to establish who has access to what and under what conditions. Of course, that hampers a lot of legitimate use cases along the way.
- sturgill 11y ago
  > If you view their website as a physical store / private establishment, then I assume that they have every right to establish who has access to what and under what conditions. Not true. There are very specific laws about not being able to discriminate against protected classes of people. Bars have to serve minorities, bakeries have to cater to same sex marriages, etc. Where you draw the line of legislated equality within private property rights is pretty intriguing. I have don't have any answers, but lean heavily towards the libertarian bent.
  - mankyd 11y ago
    That's fair, though private establishments are still allowed to distinguish based on other criteria such as membership, partnership, etc. I didn't meant to be super specific. I'm merely pointing out that they are allowed to establish barriers to entry.
deleted 11y ago
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by azakai 11y ago

mankyd 11y ago

> If they allowed all bots but disallowed all non-bots, that would raise questions of what defines a "bot". Maybe, but I think its a pretty easy distinction. They aren't even allowing all bots - they're allowing a white list of them. You're not just writing your own bot to get around it, you're pretending to be someone else's bot. > But in practice, it seems they favor certain bots. Is it ok that the WSJ lets Google do things Google's competitors cannot? That's the really important question. I personally have no context for answering except to say that I can see both sides argued. If you view their website as a physical store / private establishment, then I assume that they have every right to establish who has access to what and under what conditions. Of course, that hampers a lot of legitimate use cases along the way.

sturgill 11y ago
> If you view their website as a physical store / private establishment, then I assume that they have every right to establish who has access to what and under what conditions. Not true. There are very specific laws about not being able to discriminate against protected classes of people. Bars have to serve minorities, bakeries have to cater to same sex marriages, etc. Where you draw the line of legislated equality within private property rights is pretty intriguing. I have don't have any answers, but lean heavily towards the libertarian bent.
- mankyd 11y ago
  That's fair, though private establishments are still allowed to distinguish based on other criteria such as membership, partnership, etc. I didn't meant to be super specific. I'm merely pointing out that they are allowed to establish barriers to entry.

deleted 11y ago

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