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> Power had a clear signal that it's license to access Facebook's website had been revoked Wait: When did accessing Facebook require a license? Shouldn't the

> Power had a clear signal that it's license to access Facebook's website had been revoked Wait: When did accessing Facebook require a license? Shouldn't the fact that Facebook is publicly-accessible make that argument moot? I don't think there's a good analogy to be made here. Facebook lets anyone use their service for free, publicly advertises it as such, and exposes loads of APIs to the world in order to facilitate that. What we have here is a company using those APIs in a way Facebook doesn't like. So what? It's not like Power's access of Facebook results in any sort of excessive burden on Facebook's servers. It just isn't compatible with their business model. Governments should never be in the business of protecting business models.

rayiner 10y ago
> Wait: When did accessing Facebook require a license? Shouldn't the fact that Facebook is publicly-accessible make that argument moot? Accessing other peoples' private property requires a license. That's true even when the property owner offers use of the property to the public. In that case, the license is implicitly granted, but can be explicitly revoked. E.g. shoppers have an implied license to walk into a mall, but malls are still private property and the owner can revoke that license at will. > Governments should never be in the business of protecting business models. In this case, the government is just protecting the property owner's right to exclude other people from its property. You can build a business on that right--e.g. Disney Land builds a whole business on excluding people from its theme parks unless they pay--but the protection exists even when no business model takes advantage of it. E.g. I can allow everyone in the world to use my pool for free, except Bob. No business model to protect--I just hate Bob and want to spite him. In fact, Bob isn't even doing anything bad on my property--I just hate his haircut. The government still has to enforce my right to exclude.
- angersock 10y ago
  Why do you believe that (completely reasonable!) examples from physical laws should be used as guiding analogies towards digital problems? Private property trespassing is not the same mechanism at all as making requests on behalf of a user. If anything, this whole thing is more like an owner telling a dim clerk to ignore a particular person inquiring at a window, and then the person wearing a fake mustache.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    > Why do you believe that (completely reasonable!) examples from physical laws should be used as guiding analogies towards digital problems? The examples from physical laws articulate the principles underlying those laws. One of those principles is that the mechanism of the trespass is totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Bob gets into my pool by sweet-talking a dim-witted security guard or rents a plane and does a HALO jump. All that matters is the end result: he's using my property even after I told him not to. Why should that principle be modified for the digital world? Now, I think that in the digital world, it can be harder to know what the property owner intends than in the physical world.[1] I think it's reasonable to require a higher standard in the digital world for proving that the alleged trespasser actually had notice he was no longer welcome. And the 9th Circuit did that when it held that a TOS was not sufficient notice. But that's not in play here--Facebook clearly and unambiguously communicated its intent to Power. Why should anything else be required? [1] Maybe it's also harder to know when someone's property was accessed intentionally. But the CFAA has a pretty stringent standard for that--the access must be "knowing." Accidentally sending packets to Facebook's computer and getting a reply would not be enough. And there is no claim here that Power didn't "access" Facebook's servers nor is there any claim it did so "unknowingly."

rayiner 10y ago

> Wait: When did accessing Facebook require a license? Shouldn't the fact that Facebook is publicly-accessible make that argument moot? Accessing other peoples' private property requires a license. That's true even when the property owner offers use of the property to the public. In that case, the license is implicitly granted, but can be explicitly revoked. E.g. shoppers have an implied license to walk into a mall, but malls are still private property and the owner can revoke that license at will. > Governments should never be in the business of protecting business models. In this case, the government is just protecting the property owner's right to exclude other people from its property. You can build a business on that right--e.g. Disney Land builds a whole business on excluding people from its theme parks unless they pay--but the protection exists even when no business model takes advantage of it. E.g. I can allow everyone in the world to use my pool for free, except Bob. No business model to protect--I just hate Bob and want to spite him. In fact, Bob isn't even doing anything bad on my property--I just hate his haircut. The government still has to enforce my right to exclude.

angersock 10y ago
Why do you believe that (completely reasonable!) examples from physical laws should be used as guiding analogies towards digital problems? Private property trespassing is not the same mechanism at all as making requests on behalf of a user. If anything, this whole thing is more like an owner telling a dim clerk to ignore a particular person inquiring at a window, and then the person wearing a fake mustache.
- rayiner 10y ago
  > Why do you believe that (completely reasonable!) examples from physical laws should be used as guiding analogies towards digital problems? The examples from physical laws articulate the principles underlying those laws. One of those principles is that the mechanism of the trespass is totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Bob gets into my pool by sweet-talking a dim-witted security guard or rents a plane and does a HALO jump. All that matters is the end result: he's using my property even after I told him not to. Why should that principle be modified for the digital world? Now, I think that in the digital world, it can be harder to know what the property owner intends than in the physical world.[1] I think it's reasonable to require a higher standard in the digital world for proving that the alleged trespasser actually had notice he was no longer welcome. And the 9th Circuit did that when it held that a TOS was not sufficient notice. But that's not in play here--Facebook clearly and unambiguously communicated its intent to Power. Why should anything else be required? [1] Maybe it's also harder to know when someone's property was accessed intentionally. But the CFAA has a pretty stringent standard for that--the access must be "knowing." Accidentally sending packets to Facebook's computer and getting a reply would not be enough. And there is no claim here that Power didn't "access" Facebook's servers nor is there any claim it did so "unknowingly."