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Whilst it is true that the extension has no legal obligation to follow the acceptable use policy, users do have to follow the policy and the courts would argue

Whilst it is true that the extension has no legal obligation to follow the acceptable use policy, users do have to follow the policy and the courts would argue this extension coerces users to break the policy. The legal precedent is Blizzard vs Bossland [1] which Bossland lost in the UK courts [1], US courts [2] and German courts [3] [1] https://www.bristows.com/news-and-publications/articles/bristows-beats-the-bots-in-blizzard-entertainment-v-bossland/ https://www.bristows.com/news-and-publications/articles/bris... [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39490317 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39490317 [3] http://gameslaw.org/bots-and-buddies-the-blizzard-v-bossland-saga-in-german-courts/ http://gameslaw.org/bots-and-buddies-the-blizzard-v-bossland...

jjeaff 8y ago
I'd say a large part of blizzard winning this case was the intent of the software. The interfering software was intended to facilitate cheating. I think it would be unlikely to have won, had the software been made to streamline the game or make it run faster.
- barbegal 8y ago
  I agree with you there, to win the case there would have to be some economic reason for Slack to not want users to use this extension. The reason they state is "Injecting javascript into Slack via Chrome extension can have an impact on the privacy and security of our customers and our product. Furthermore, this can create reliability issues when we ship product updates." If they can prove that is true then the case stands up but if BetterSlack doesn't impact security, privacy or reliability then the case would probably be dismissed. There's some excellent analysis of this sort of case here https://ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=lr https://ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&cont...
  - tptacek 8y ago
    If it alters the DOM, it impacts security, and in a very significant way, since DOM security is in a sense the most important security barrier between untrustworthy content and all the messages a user has access to on a Slack.
    - jjeaff 8y ago
      Sure, it "impacts" security. But as we are discussing above, it would need to be shown to "negatively" impact security. I don't think you could win on the basis of "it's not recommended to do that, but we can't see any examples of it actually causing security problems."

jjeaff 8y ago

I'd say a large part of blizzard winning this case was the intent of the software. The interfering software was intended to facilitate cheating. I think it would be unlikely to have won, had the software been made to streamline the game or make it run faster.

barbegal 8y ago
I agree with you there, to win the case there would have to be some economic reason for Slack to not want users to use this extension. The reason they state is "Injecting javascript into Slack via Chrome extension can have an impact on the privacy and security of our customers and our product. Furthermore, this can create reliability issues when we ship product updates." If they can prove that is true then the case stands up but if BetterSlack doesn't impact security, privacy or reliability then the case would probably be dismissed. There's some excellent analysis of this sort of case here https://ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=lr https://ir.law.fsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&cont...
- tptacek 8y ago
  If it alters the DOM, it impacts security, and in a very significant way, since DOM security is in a sense the most important security barrier between untrustworthy content and all the messages a user has access to on a Slack.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    Sure, it "impacts" security. But as we are discussing above, it would need to be shown to "negatively" impact security. I don't think you could win on the basis of "it's not recommended to do that, but we can't see any examples of it actually causing security problems."