4 ms·

Couldn't he face personal liability in a civil lawsuit for monetary damages? Like if Daily Stormtrooper's hosting costs go up in a DDOS

jacquesm 9y ago
Obviously, absolutely not.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  The site could, in theory, sue Cloudflare for failing to provide the services they paid for. That is, they could do so if they paid anything for the services they received (they didn't). And it's only if Cloudflare didn't have a "we reserve the right to discontinue services at any time for any reason at our sole discretion" clause in their ToS (they do).
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Of course they can sue. Anybody can sue anybody else for whatever fancy they have. But that's not the same as winning that suit.
    - Spivak 9y ago
      There's no need to be pedantic here. When a layperson talks about the ability of one person to sue another they mean the high likelihood of winning said suit. We all know what the parent meant.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        > There's no need to be pedantic here. When a layperson talks about the ability of one person to sue another they mean the high likelihood of winning said suit. well, I'm a layperson and I would not interpret it that way. Suing someone is taking a gamble, and that gamble does not necessarily pay off. In this particular case the 'high likeihood of winning said suit' is not all that high. > We all know what the parent meant. You only speak for yourself and you definitely do not speak for me.
        kelnos 9y ago
        > You only speak for yourself. And for me, as well. I, like (hopefully) most people who comment here, am well aware that you can sue anyone for any reason, with zero evidence or support for your assertion. When someone asks "couldn't X be sued for Y?", I always read that as a question of someone asking about the likelihood of winning that particular suit. Because if you take the question literally, then the answer is -- literally -- always yes, so it'd never be a useful question, ever. But sure, maybe someone with a radically different legal system is asking. In that case, still, a simple, non-pedantic-sounding "sure, they could, but they'd be unlikely to win because A and B" would suffice.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        So, in what world do you see a judge awarding damages to a Neo Nazi outfit that decided to sue a provider of an optional internet service for damages incurred because the internet service provider withdraw their service in explicit agreement with their terms of service? Sure you can sue for that but I do not see any chance of winning such a suit, and I'm pretty sure that that Cloudflare would be more than happy to litigate their right to deny service.
        kelnos 9y ago
        Never said I did see that world. Just that it was a reasonably question that didn't deserve a flippant, pedantic answer. But let's say I did, as maybe the original poster you replied to did. The answer you just gave that I'm replying to (perhaps with a bit of a more patient tone) would have been way more useful than your original answer.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        Noted.
        Dylan16807 9y ago
        >> We all know what the parent meant. > You only speak for yourself and you definitely do not speak for me. So you reflexively see the words "X can sue" as a truism, a meaningless statement? It doesn't occur to you that the person saying those words actually wanted to convey some information with them? Fine by me if you disagree with whether the odds of some suit getting anywhere are better than nil. But to not even realize that such a statement is being made, that must suck.
      - Strom 9y ago
        There's more to suing than the likelihood of winning. War of attrition is a big one. If you have a lot of resources you can sue just to cause financial damage, emotional distress etc to the defendant without having to actually eventually win the case. So it's completely fair that when a layperson talks about the ability of suing, they're talking about net losses from that process and not necessarily about the final verdict.
    - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
      thats the complete rebuttal? I could see a judge granting summary judgement in favor of Daily Stormer before Cloudflare even gets around to responding.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        > I could see a judge granting summary judgement in favor of Daily Stormer before Cloudflare even gets around to responding. Yes, you wrote the same thing upthread. But you are not a judge so what you see or do not see isn't all that important here, what is important is how judges have found in other cases and it is typically quite hard to force a company to do business with any entity they do not wish to serve unless that entity is part of a protected class, which Neo Nazis are not. So on what grounds do you feel that Cloudflare would absolutely have to accept every customer that wishes their service? They're not a common carrier.
- ringaroundthetx 9y ago
  Can you give me several reasons why a judge wouldn't merely grant summary judgement in favor of Daily Stormer? Or why their arguments would fail? "Cloudflare unexpectedly revoked our traffic mitigating service in the middle of our highest costly traffic, our costs went up this much. Cloudflare caused this, these are the damages, and here are the punitive damages to deter this behavior in the future, the CEO even said this is not company policy."
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Because it is pretty rare for a judge to side with a consumer who states they would like the judge to force the company to do business with them. Neo Nazis are not a protected class in the sense of the word so they'd have to pull some kind of legal rabbit out of their head to make that work. The fact that there are damages does not immediately imply that some outside party is liable for those damages. It merely means that you are back where you would have been without that outside party. So even if Cloudflare caused this that does not immediately imply liability. So if the Daily Stormer wishes to sue Cloudflare they obviously can but I really doubt they will make it stick.
    - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
      This isn't about a protected class, that wouldn't even be the argument. Civil lawsuits only look at damages and the argument on what caused the damages. It is just about proving monetary damages.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        Sure, but that all starts with you claiming you have a right to the service to begin with. And that's the hard part to prove here, especially since Cloudflare fairly explicitly reserves the right not to do business with anybody they don't feel like serving.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    Because of this sentence from Cloudflare's Terms of Service: "You further agree that if...Cloudflare, in its sole discretion, deems it necessary due to excessive burden or potential adverse impact on Cloudflare’s systems, potential adverse impact on other users, server processing power, server memory, abuse controls, or other reasons, Cloudflare may suspend or terminate your account without notice to or liability to you" [1]. If you don't want that kind of a service relationship, you negotiate a fixed-term contract up front. [1] https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ Section 10; also see § 15 (Termination)

jacquesm 9y ago

Obviously, absolutely not.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
The site could, in theory, sue Cloudflare for failing to provide the services they paid for. That is, they could do so if they paid anything for the services they received (they didn't). And it's only if Cloudflare didn't have a "we reserve the right to discontinue services at any time for any reason at our sole discretion" clause in their ToS (they do).
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Of course they can sue. Anybody can sue anybody else for whatever fancy they have. But that's not the same as winning that suit.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    There's no need to be pedantic here. When a layperson talks about the ability of one person to sue another they mean the high likelihood of winning said suit. We all know what the parent meant.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      > There's no need to be pedantic here. When a layperson talks about the ability of one person to sue another they mean the high likelihood of winning said suit. well, I'm a layperson and I would not interpret it that way. Suing someone is taking a gamble, and that gamble does not necessarily pay off. In this particular case the 'high likeihood of winning said suit' is not all that high. > We all know what the parent meant. You only speak for yourself and you definitely do not speak for me.
      - kelnos 9y ago
        > You only speak for yourself. And for me, as well. I, like (hopefully) most people who comment here, am well aware that you can sue anyone for any reason, with zero evidence or support for your assertion. When someone asks "couldn't X be sued for Y?", I always read that as a question of someone asking about the likelihood of winning that particular suit. Because if you take the question literally, then the answer is -- literally -- always yes, so it'd never be a useful question, ever. But sure, maybe someone with a radically different legal system is asking. In that case, still, a simple, non-pedantic-sounding "sure, they could, but they'd be unlikely to win because A and B" would suffice.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        So, in what world do you see a judge awarding damages to a Neo Nazi outfit that decided to sue a provider of an optional internet service for damages incurred because the internet service provider withdraw their service in explicit agreement with their terms of service? Sure you can sue for that but I do not see any chance of winning such a suit, and I'm pretty sure that that Cloudflare would be more than happy to litigate their right to deny service.
        kelnos 9y ago
        Never said I did see that world. Just that it was a reasonably question that didn't deserve a flippant, pedantic answer. But let's say I did, as maybe the original poster you replied to did. The answer you just gave that I'm replying to (perhaps with a bit of a more patient tone) would have been way more useful than your original answer.
        jacquesm 9y ago
        Noted.
      - Dylan16807 9y ago
        >> We all know what the parent meant. > You only speak for yourself and you definitely do not speak for me. So you reflexively see the words "X can sue" as a truism, a meaningless statement? It doesn't occur to you that the person saying those words actually wanted to convey some information with them? Fine by me if you disagree with whether the odds of some suit getting anywhere are better than nil. But to not even realize that such a statement is being made, that must suck.
    - Strom 9y ago
      There's more to suing than the likelihood of winning. War of attrition is a big one. If you have a lot of resources you can sue just to cause financial damage, emotional distress etc to the defendant without having to actually eventually win the case. So it's completely fair that when a layperson talks about the ability of suing, they're talking about net losses from that process and not necessarily about the final verdict.
  - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
    thats the complete rebuttal? I could see a judge granting summary judgement in favor of Daily Stormer before Cloudflare even gets around to responding.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      > I could see a judge granting summary judgement in favor of Daily Stormer before Cloudflare even gets around to responding. Yes, you wrote the same thing upthread. But you are not a judge so what you see or do not see isn't all that important here, what is important is how judges have found in other cases and it is typically quite hard to force a company to do business with any entity they do not wish to serve unless that entity is part of a protected class, which Neo Nazis are not. So on what grounds do you feel that Cloudflare would absolutely have to accept every customer that wishes their service? They're not a common carrier.
ringaroundthetx 9y ago
Can you give me several reasons why a judge wouldn't merely grant summary judgement in favor of Daily Stormer? Or why their arguments would fail? "Cloudflare unexpectedly revoked our traffic mitigating service in the middle of our highest costly traffic, our costs went up this much. Cloudflare caused this, these are the damages, and here are the punitive damages to deter this behavior in the future, the CEO even said this is not company policy."
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Because it is pretty rare for a judge to side with a consumer who states they would like the judge to force the company to do business with them. Neo Nazis are not a protected class in the sense of the word so they'd have to pull some kind of legal rabbit out of their head to make that work. The fact that there are damages does not immediately imply that some outside party is liable for those damages. It merely means that you are back where you would have been without that outside party. So even if Cloudflare caused this that does not immediately imply liability. So if the Daily Stormer wishes to sue Cloudflare they obviously can but I really doubt they will make it stick.
  - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
    This isn't about a protected class, that wouldn't even be the argument. Civil lawsuits only look at damages and the argument on what caused the damages. It is just about proving monetary damages.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Sure, but that all starts with you claiming you have a right to the service to begin with. And that's the hard part to prove here, especially since Cloudflare fairly explicitly reserves the right not to do business with anybody they don't feel like serving.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  Because of this sentence from Cloudflare's Terms of Service: "You further agree that if...Cloudflare, in its sole discretion, deems it necessary due to excessive burden or potential adverse impact on Cloudflare’s systems, potential adverse impact on other users, server processing power, server memory, abuse controls, or other reasons, Cloudflare may suspend or terminate your account without notice to or liability to you" [1]. If you don't want that kind of a service relationship, you negotiate a fixed-term contract up front. [1] https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ Section 10; also see § 15 (Termination)