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>One plausible reading of the law—the one LinkedIn is advocating—is that once a website operator asks you to stop accessing its site, you commit a crime if you

>One plausible reading of the law—the one LinkedIn is advocating—is that once a website operator asks you to stop accessing its site, you commit a crime if you don't comply. I'm fine with that. But I'm also fine if they do the like the article suggests and require anything non-scrapable to be behind an account prompt, even if everyone with a account can access it. I don't think it's fair to make Linked In foot the bill for someone else's business. They shouldn't have to serve that content to people who aren't actually their users.

deleted 9y ago
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mbillie1 9y ago
> They shouldn't have to serve that content to people who aren't actually their users. So put it behind a password. It's not reasonable to expect to get only the benefits of publicly-searchable data without any of the drawbacks.
- Spivak 9y ago
  This is the crux of the issue, it's my impression that the CFAA doesn't have any language that sites have to take precautions to prevent unauthorized access.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  The policy is also harmful to innovation. If a Google-like competitor started, all Google would have to do to crush them is demand big-name sites formally prohibit the competitor from accessing their content or risk being delisted. And magically, it becomes impossible/illegal to build a duck-duck-go.
  - ue_ 9y ago
    Isn't that monopolistic behaviour? I suspect that it might violate some laws, though I don't know anything in particular. On the other hand, why couldn't DDG just do what Google does and say "robots.txt prevents us from getting a description for this site"? On one hand I'm against the cartel beahviour of Google doing something like that, but on the other hand, if Google asks and the other company agrees to block DDG, why shouldn't that be allowed?
Chris2048 9y ago
> They shouldn't have to serve that content to people who aren't actually their users. And insurance companies only want to serve people who won't claim etc. LI is free to force users to usage agreements, but why should third-parties (taxpayers) foot the bill for enforcing them?

deleted 9y ago

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mbillie1 9y ago

> They shouldn't have to serve that content to people who aren't actually their users. So put it behind a password. It's not reasonable to expect to get only the benefits of publicly-searchable data without any of the drawbacks.

Spivak 9y ago
This is the crux of the issue, it's my impression that the CFAA doesn't have any language that sites have to take precautions to prevent unauthorized access.
mywittyname 9y ago
The policy is also harmful to innovation. If a Google-like competitor started, all Google would have to do to crush them is demand big-name sites formally prohibit the competitor from accessing their content or risk being delisted. And magically, it becomes impossible/illegal to build a duck-duck-go.
- ue_ 9y ago
  Isn't that monopolistic behaviour? I suspect that it might violate some laws, though I don't know anything in particular. On the other hand, why couldn't DDG just do what Google does and say "robots.txt prevents us from getting a description for this site"? On one hand I'm against the cartel beahviour of Google doing something like that, but on the other hand, if Google asks and the other company agrees to block DDG, why shouldn't that be allowed?

Chris2048 9y ago

> They shouldn't have to serve that content to people who aren't actually their users. And insurance companies only want to serve people who won't claim etc. LI is free to force users to usage agreements, but why should third-parties (taxpayers) foot the bill for enforcing them?