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Sorry, as implied to my comment on the first story about this posted to Hacker News, I'm siding with Facebook on this one. Of course they tune their page so th
by jrussbowman 16y ago
Sorry, as implied to my comment on the first story about this posted to Hacker News, I'm siding with Facebook on this one.
Of course they tune their page so that search crawlers can best index the information, so does everyone else on the web.
However, they also provide an API, with clearly defined terms of use, which you may use to get information. Basically your complaint boils down to you don't want to use the methods they've set up for you to access their data, and you're complaining about it.
As for comments about fair, true spirit of the internet what have you... I don't think the true spirit of the internet has ever been everyone has to give everything away in every possible imaginable way. And, in the end, it is Facebook's data, they make that clear before you ever start adding data to their servers. So does just about everyone else who allows you to submit data to their servers.
This shouldn't be confused with how difficult it is to remove data and accounts from their system, which is a giant pain in the butt, or the fact that they've made drastic changes to the public nature of the data after keeping it private for so long. That's all just a giant mess.
- jdrock 16y agoIt's not Facebook's data. It's the users' data.
- xtacy 16y agoI am just logically arguing here, not in support for anyone. But hasn't Facebook worked "hard" to setup the infrastructure to "collect" users' data? If you want users' data, go ask the users; not via scraping Facebook.
- curio 16y agobut their robots.txt says that you're welcome to scrape it: User-agent: * Disallow: /ac.php Disallow: /ae.php Disallow: /album.php Disallow: /ap.php Disallow: /feeds/ Disallow: /o.php Disallow: /p.php Disallow: /photo_comments.php Disallow: /photo_search.php Disallow: /photos.php
- natrius 16y agoIf I request content without circumventing any access controls and you give that content to me, I've done nothing wrong. I didn't accept any terms of service to do that, and even if I did, what is the legal recourse for someone breaking the terms of service? I always assumed it was termination of service, but that's probably wrong. Suing people because you're too lazy to only give your content to people who you want to receive it is wrong.
- jdrock 16y agoWhat will happen is that they will send a cease and desist letter to you (like they did to Pete). At that point, you have basically given notice and it becomes much riskier to continue doing what you're doing. That's not to say their C&D is valid or enforceable. It just enters into another legal bin that's a bit more hairy. Unfortunately, the legal precedent for all this is murky at best. Past cases have been very specific to the details of those cases. No line has ever been drawn about what is ok and what is not.
- moxiemk1 16y ago> That's not to say their C&D is valid or enforceable. It just enters into another legal bin that's a bit more hairy. Exactly. It will be interesting to see where things end up playing out in the "leaving yourself wide open" department. It's very much parallel with the "using open wifi points" debate.
- Daniel_Newby 16y ago"However, they also provide an API, with clearly defined terms of use, ..." But are those terms an enforceable contract? Probably not. Merely making available a document that purports to be a contract does not make it so.
- scott_s 16y agoI think it's valid to consider robots.txt to be a part of a site's API.
- what 16y ago> it is Facebook's data, they make that clear before you ever start adding data to their servers. Not really true, their policy clearly says: "You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook" http://www.facebook.com/terms.php http://www.facebook.com/terms.php