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They're making it available, but isn't it being made available under a specific license? > Is it immoral if I watch tapes of the competing team's last football

They're making it available, but isn't it being made available under a specific license? > Is it immoral if I watch tapes of the competing team's last football game to figure out what plays they like to use? Did you have to impersonate someone who's supposed to have access to it in order to watch it? That seems more like the question that would decide it. "Because they don't want you to" is a bad way to phrase it, even if it gets to the core of things. After all, they wrote their license agreement based on what they want you to do, right? > there's no subterfuge going on "I want API access." "We only give that to drivers." "OK, I'm a driver." "OK, here's API access" Are you going to argue that Uber's devs could've had that theoretical conversation without being intentionally deceptive?

cookiecaper 10y ago
>Did you have to impersonate someone who's supposed to have access to it in order to watch it? That seems more like the question that would decide it. Is it impersonation if I just don't go in wearing the opposing team's colors? What if I go wearing the playing team's jersey? What if I'm the coach of that other team so I wear a hat and sunglasses? Where's the line of "impersonation"? This can't be taken as an absolute unless we concede that we must say "OK" just because they say "Please don't", even if they're able to find a way to make this technically legally binding. Morality does NOT require us to give up as soon as someone tries to block us. >"Because they don't want you to" is a bad way to phrase it, even if it gets to the core of things. After all, they wrote their license agreement based on what they want you to do, right? Sure. I'm not disputing that this was almost definitely a technical violation of the CFAA. The CFAA is a disgustingly overbroad and outdated law, and Lyft finagling their process to get under its cover shouldn't be a moral indictment of Uber. [The bright side of this is that if similar lawsuits start coming out against some other big players, the law might finally change.] Are licensing agreements automatically eval'd into moral absolutes? If we take such a strict position we can never win against any moderately powerful entity. The path to ascendancy for most companies involves "avoid a lawsuit", because frequently there are laws on the books that could take them down. Google is a great example; their conduct technically violates the CFAA and rampantly violates copyright, even though the courts ended up giving them a pass in Perfect 10 v. Amazon because they're afraid to shut down Google. >Are you going to argue that Uber's devs could've had that theoretical conversation without being intentionally deceptive? I'll argue that it doesn't cross the threshold from "deception required to be basically functional in a competitive environment" into "immoral and personally compromising deception". When you enter business, you know you are entering a competitive market where part of the game is getting an advantage over your competitors, and their attempting to do so over you. Concocting a complex legal apparatus that gives some meat to any potential lawsuit between competitors is routine. It doesn't affect the morality of the process, despite the theatrics of the court.
- khedoros1 10y ago
  > Is it impersonation if I just don't go in wearing the opposing team's colors? What if I go wearing the playing team's jersey? What if I'm the coach of that other team so I wear a hat and sunglasses? Where's the line of "impersonation"? You're playing with the words, rather than the meaning behind them, and you're smart enough to know that. You're mixing up morality and legality a lot, which I find interesting. I wouldn't say that they have much to do with each other. I'd consider corporations (generally speaking) as amoral entities, striving against the bounds of punishment under the law, and the law as an amoral construct acting as the buffer and interface between other entities (individuals, corporations, other nations). Its job is to act in the interests of the people, one aspect of which is encouraging, but also regulating, the competition in the market. Working toward an even playing field, and correcting when it falls short of providing that. > I'll argue that it doesn't cross the threshold from "deception required to be basically functional in a competitive environment" into "immoral and personally compromising deception". I'd argue that it crosses the threshold into behavior that should fall outside the bounds of legal competition. We're better off with many weaker competitors than we are with one strong one.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    >I'd argue that it crosses the threshold into behavior that should fall outside the bounds of legal competition. We're better off with many weaker competitors than we are with one strong one. That's the funny thing about this. I completely agree that we're better with many smaller competitors. The CFAA, like most such laws, is routinely used to stop small competitors. The CFAA is a huge reason that tech incumbents are able to keep their de-facto monopolies, exactly because they make up licensing agreements that say "Reading our site means you swear you won't compete against us" and then send out a firm full of $1k/hr lawyers to do their dirty work. An "even playing field" would not put force of law behind such fantastical, unrealistic, and anti-competitive assertions. Signing up for the other guy's ToS is not something that would fire off moral alarm bells in your average person. It's naive to believe that anyone adheres to these absurdities, and you have to be a huge company to enforce them. The false belief that businesses actually restrain themselves to align with such regulations instead of fighting hard to get in a winning position is exactly what leads to damaging laws like the CFAA in the first place. The net effect is that small innovators get obliterated and denounced for trying to get some leverage while companies playing in the hundreds of millions (Lyft and Uber) can squabble in court before deciding to save some dough and draw up a settlement that says they'll stop accessing the other guy's API (at which point they'll find a proxy or replacement).

cookiecaper 10y ago

>Did you have to impersonate someone who's supposed to have access to it in order to watch it? That seems more like the question that would decide it. Is it impersonation if I just don't go in wearing the opposing team's colors? What if I go wearing the playing team's jersey? What if I'm the coach of that other team so I wear a hat and sunglasses? Where's the line of "impersonation"? This can't be taken as an absolute unless we concede that we must say "OK" just because they say "Please don't", even if they're able to find a way to make this technically legally binding. Morality does NOT require us to give up as soon as someone tries to block us. >"Because they don't want you to" is a bad way to phrase it, even if it gets to the core of things. After all, they wrote their license agreement based on what they want you to do, right? Sure. I'm not disputing that this was almost definitely a technical violation of the CFAA. The CFAA is a disgustingly overbroad and outdated law, and Lyft finagling their process to get under its cover shouldn't be a moral indictment of Uber. [The bright side of this is that if similar lawsuits start coming out against some other big players, the law might finally change.] Are licensing agreements automatically eval'd into moral absolutes? If we take such a strict position we can never win against any moderately powerful entity. The path to ascendancy for most companies involves "avoid a lawsuit", because frequently there are laws on the books that could take them down. Google is a great example; their conduct technically violates the CFAA and rampantly violates copyright, even though the courts ended up giving them a pass in Perfect 10 v. Amazon because they're afraid to shut down Google. >Are you going to argue that Uber's devs could've had that theoretical conversation without being intentionally deceptive? I'll argue that it doesn't cross the threshold from "deception required to be basically functional in a competitive environment" into "immoral and personally compromising deception". When you enter business, you know you are entering a competitive market where part of the game is getting an advantage over your competitors, and their attempting to do so over you. Concocting a complex legal apparatus that gives some meat to any potential lawsuit between competitors is routine. It doesn't affect the morality of the process, despite the theatrics of the court.

khedoros1 10y ago
> Is it impersonation if I just don't go in wearing the opposing team's colors? What if I go wearing the playing team's jersey? What if I'm the coach of that other team so I wear a hat and sunglasses? Where's the line of "impersonation"? You're playing with the words, rather than the meaning behind them, and you're smart enough to know that. You're mixing up morality and legality a lot, which I find interesting. I wouldn't say that they have much to do with each other. I'd consider corporations (generally speaking) as amoral entities, striving against the bounds of punishment under the law, and the law as an amoral construct acting as the buffer and interface between other entities (individuals, corporations, other nations). Its job is to act in the interests of the people, one aspect of which is encouraging, but also regulating, the competition in the market. Working toward an even playing field, and correcting when it falls short of providing that. > I'll argue that it doesn't cross the threshold from "deception required to be basically functional in a competitive environment" into "immoral and personally compromising deception". I'd argue that it crosses the threshold into behavior that should fall outside the bounds of legal competition. We're better off with many weaker competitors than we are with one strong one.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  >I'd argue that it crosses the threshold into behavior that should fall outside the bounds of legal competition. We're better off with many weaker competitors than we are with one strong one. That's the funny thing about this. I completely agree that we're better with many smaller competitors. The CFAA, like most such laws, is routinely used to stop small competitors. The CFAA is a huge reason that tech incumbents are able to keep their de-facto monopolies, exactly because they make up licensing agreements that say "Reading our site means you swear you won't compete against us" and then send out a firm full of $1k/hr lawyers to do their dirty work. An "even playing field" would not put force of law behind such fantastical, unrealistic, and anti-competitive assertions. Signing up for the other guy's ToS is not something that would fire off moral alarm bells in your average person. It's naive to believe that anyone adheres to these absurdities, and you have to be a huge company to enforce them. The false belief that businesses actually restrain themselves to align with such regulations instead of fighting hard to get in a winning position is exactly what leads to damaging laws like the CFAA in the first place. The net effect is that small innovators get obliterated and denounced for trying to get some leverage while companies playing in the hundreds of millions (Lyft and Uber) can squabble in court before deciding to save some dough and draw up a settlement that says they'll stop accessing the other guy's API (at which point they'll find a proxy or replacement).