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A disclaimer would not work. Disclaimers might work where there is a risk that the user will violate the acceptable use policy but this cease and desist letter

A disclaimer would not work. Disclaimers might work where there is a risk that the user will violate the acceptable use policy but this cease and desist letter has effectively said that all users will violate the acceptable use policy therefore the disclaimer would be quickly dismissed by any court of law. As a slightly bad analogy imagine a disclaimer that customers of a fairground ride might experience back pain. If it was found that all previous customers had suffered back pain then the disclaimer would not be enforceable and the ride owners could be sued for negligence.

mattigames 8y ago
False, how a website is rendered on a device I own is not enforceable (legally speaking) by a acceptable use policy or any website policy; otherwise people would just use that to deter ad-blockers browsers extensions instead of all the shady tactics commonly used.
- jahewson 8y ago
  That’s not the case at all. Your “ownership” of the device isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. If you’ve signed an agreement with Slack not to modify their product, then you don’t get to modify their product. Blocking ads is not quite the same thing as modifying a product - but I don’t see any obvious reason why an EULA which forbids ad-blocking wouldn’t be enforceable. Though it would be deeply unpopular.
  - mattigames 8y ago
    You are not modifying slack (their product), when you request a website all they are sending you its a bunch of characters, including characters inside CSS or JS files, rendering those its up to your machine, you are not legally binded to render those in a specific way, otherwise screen readers would all be completely illegal, all threads of not modifying your local render of a website always end poorly by the people doing such threats, examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2r3uok/we_developed_a_chrome_plugin_that_overlays_lower/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2r3uok/we_developed_a... https://www.quora.com/Is-AdBlock-legal-If-not-specifically-why-not-Have-cases-been-brought-against-Adblock-If-so-in-which-jurisdictions-and-have-there-been-important-judgements https://www.quora.com/Is-AdBlock-legal-If-not-specifically-w...
    - TheDong 8y ago
      > You are not modifying slack (their product) Their product are the bits they ship to you and the code they run on their servers. You're modifying a part of their product. Since you can't modify their product, you also obviously shouldn't be able to use any web browser to view slack because those browsers take those bytes they ship you and interpret them in the context of the browser windowing system (its userChrome.css for example)... that's also clearly modifying the experience they delivered to you. You also shouldn't be able to use a computer monitor that has color settings different from the web designers working at slack. If you accidentally have a monitor with slightly less blue than theirs, well, you just modified the slack UI to be a little less blue. Obviously a ToS violation and you shouldn't use them at all. God forbid if you zoom in on the page to modify their product's resolution/size.
      - 0x0 8y ago
        He he, too funny you mention zooming. I've had a bug report going for a while where their emoji sprite sheet gets all messed up if you run at smaller zoom levels. I think they still haven't fixed it properly. :)
        mkoryak 8y ago
        Because people who zoom do not deserve to be on the internets.
        admax88q 8y ago
        I hope your eyesight stays 20/20 for the rest of your life. Jerk.
        mattigames 8y ago
        He was being sarcastic... I think.
      - wolco 8y ago
        No you are modifying that rendered part. A website can't control what you do with the output.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    They don't sue adblockers because they wouldn't win.
  - jklinger410 8y ago
    >Blocking ads is not quite the same thing as modifying a product Explain.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      > Blocking ads is not quite the same thing as modifying a product I was going to comment something similar, but in trying to come up with details and examples to explain my point, I realized I couldn't, I so I decided they aren't really different with respect to modifying a product. What makes them different is how the product was modified, but that presupposes modifying the product and that's not really the way the question has been posed. Blocking ads is removing the revenue mechanism, and is akin to patching out account verification for a desktop product (assuming the webapp/webpage has some AUP stating that the ads are required to be viewed as part of the service). Modifying a program takes many forms, from removing authentication mechanisms to fixing bugs or adding enhancements, so while the legal system may or may not acknowledge those differences, it's at best an overly broad description of the case in question.
- onli 8y ago
  That is not that absurd, they actually tried that. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-trial-adblocking/german-supreme-court-rules-ad-blockers-legal-in-defeat-for-springer-idUSKBN1HQ277 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-trial-adblocking/...
  - zaarn 8y ago
    Axel Springer (not to be confused with Springer, the publisher for scientific papers) is still trying to sue btw, they're trying to go for the angle that Adblocking prevents freedom of the press since it takes away their funding. And tbh, Axel Springer isn't the most surprising entity to sue for this, the entire publication house is a bunch of asshats, who have been cited for being the most deplorable journalists and in one case someone argued that one should be as mean and rude as legally possible to employees of Axel Springer. They have also succesfully sued the producer of an Anti-Anti-Adblocker since their Anti-Adblocker was considered DRM by the court (IIRC).
- mikeryan 8y ago
  This just starts a death spiral though. Slacks next step is to start detecting the objecting code and banning users from using the web interface that are found using those tools. There are a bunch of folks doing this already for ad blockers.
  - mattigames 8y ago
    Is there any company that have had positive results using such tactics? It seems anyone who tries gets such a backlash and end up losing more than what they gain, plus they expose themselves to have false positives (e.g. one image didn't load due connection issues but slack falsely assumed it was an extension blocking it)
  - afandian 8y ago
    Try using Slack in a browser on Android. It doesn't work. I find that really objectionable. They don't (last time I asked) distribute an APK. Instead they directed me to a pirate APK site, so I don't believe it's for security.
    - wolco 8y ago
      What browser are you using and are you upto date. Many sites don't work on mobile chrome. I find it hard to believe they would redirect you to a pirate site. Are you sure it was a pirate site and not just a third party site hosting apks
      - afandian 8y ago
        Firefox on Android. Per my other comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17874566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17874566 it was a mirror site, though I didn't save the chat log so I can't remember which one.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Try using Slack in a browser on Android. It doesn't work. It does work on Firefox for Android, if you enable Request Desktop Site. It's not optimized for small screens, though.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  I don't think Slack would ever go after end-users who install something like this. But they could go after the creator, who presumably created a Slack account in order to be able to build the extension, and who therefore must have agreed to the T&Cs. This could include a no-reverse-engineering clause that prohibits the sorts of things that this extension does.
  - mattigames 8y ago
    Do you know about an instance where something like that already happened?
    - gnicholas 8y ago
      Which part? Not going after users or T&Cs that include a prohibition on reverse engineering? If the latter, yes this is pretty common.
      - mattigames 8y ago
        I mean suing someone who created a web extension alleging reverse engineering is against ToS
        gnicholas 8y ago
        I don't personally know of anything that specifically. But I'd imagine that in most cases, things would unfold as they did here — with the creator pulling the extension rather than risk losing the lawsuit.
jahewson 8y ago
Sort of. It’s fine to have a disclaimer which says “this will void your warranty”, just look at smartphone jailbreaking. He’s not breaking Slack’s terms of service - his users are. But then the next logical step is to argue that he’s inducing a breach of contract by his users, which seems to be the case.
- wstuartcl 8y ago
  In any case, it probably is not worth likely legal costs and effort should the other party take legal action. It is one thing to theorize about legal implications, quite another to risk livelihood etc to put it to test. Defending against action takes time and money which amounts to loss in many cases even when you are successful in court.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    There is almost zero chance slack would win this case and I doubt they would even try. Adblockers inject code into sites. So do password keepers. If sites could sue adblockers because it breaks their terms of service, don't you think they would? You are not bound by the slack terms of service except in the scope of your slack account or an API connection of some type. Someone else can use my software all day long to break their terms of service, but that doesn't make me liable. I didn't agree to anything. People need to realize that terms of service are a civil contract. It's not "illegal" to break them. Especially if you didn't agree to the terms.
    - wstuartcl 8y ago
      This is the difference between fantasizing about the likelihood of outcomes when you have no skin in the game and being on the other side of a well funded adversary that is threatening a lawsuit. Put yourself in the POV of the one with skin in the game and consider that it may take years and insane expense (time/money/energy) to prevail against even a poorly founded lawsuit. Being "right", sometimes, is not worth the fight.
    - mkoryak 8y ago

mattigames 8y ago

False, how a website is rendered on a device I own is not enforceable (legally speaking) by a acceptable use policy or any website policy; otherwise people would just use that to deter ad-blockers browsers extensions instead of all the shady tactics commonly used.

jahewson 8y ago
That’s not the case at all. Your “ownership” of the device isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. If you’ve signed an agreement with Slack not to modify their product, then you don’t get to modify their product. Blocking ads is not quite the same thing as modifying a product - but I don’t see any obvious reason why an EULA which forbids ad-blocking wouldn’t be enforceable. Though it would be deeply unpopular.
- mattigames 8y ago
  You are not modifying slack (their product), when you request a website all they are sending you its a bunch of characters, including characters inside CSS or JS files, rendering those its up to your machine, you are not legally binded to render those in a specific way, otherwise screen readers would all be completely illegal, all threads of not modifying your local render of a website always end poorly by the people doing such threats, examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2r3uok/we_developed_a_chrome_plugin_that_overlays_lower/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2r3uok/we_developed_a... https://www.quora.com/Is-AdBlock-legal-If-not-specifically-why-not-Have-cases-been-brought-against-Adblock-If-so-in-which-jurisdictions-and-have-there-been-important-judgements https://www.quora.com/Is-AdBlock-legal-If-not-specifically-w...
  - TheDong 8y ago
    > You are not modifying slack (their product) Their product are the bits they ship to you and the code they run on their servers. You're modifying a part of their product. Since you can't modify their product, you also obviously shouldn't be able to use any web browser to view slack because those browsers take those bytes they ship you and interpret them in the context of the browser windowing system (its userChrome.css for example)... that's also clearly modifying the experience they delivered to you. You also shouldn't be able to use a computer monitor that has color settings different from the web designers working at slack. If you accidentally have a monitor with slightly less blue than theirs, well, you just modified the slack UI to be a little less blue. Obviously a ToS violation and you shouldn't use them at all. God forbid if you zoom in on the page to modify their product's resolution/size.
    - 0x0 8y ago
      He he, too funny you mention zooming. I've had a bug report going for a while where their emoji sprite sheet gets all messed up if you run at smaller zoom levels. I think they still haven't fixed it properly. :)
      - mkoryak 8y ago
        Because people who zoom do not deserve to be on the internets.
        admax88q 8y ago
        I hope your eyesight stays 20/20 for the rest of your life. Jerk.
        mattigames 8y ago
        He was being sarcastic... I think.
    - wolco 8y ago
      No you are modifying that rendered part. A website can't control what you do with the output.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  They don't sue adblockers because they wouldn't win.
- jklinger410 8y ago
  >Blocking ads is not quite the same thing as modifying a product Explain.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > Blocking ads is not quite the same thing as modifying a product I was going to comment something similar, but in trying to come up with details and examples to explain my point, I realized I couldn't, I so I decided they aren't really different with respect to modifying a product. What makes them different is how the product was modified, but that presupposes modifying the product and that's not really the way the question has been posed. Blocking ads is removing the revenue mechanism, and is akin to patching out account verification for a desktop product (assuming the webapp/webpage has some AUP stating that the ads are required to be viewed as part of the service). Modifying a program takes many forms, from removing authentication mechanisms to fixing bugs or adding enhancements, so while the legal system may or may not acknowledge those differences, it's at best an overly broad description of the case in question.
onli 8y ago
That is not that absurd, they actually tried that. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-trial-adblocking/german-supreme-court-rules-ad-blockers-legal-in-defeat-for-springer-idUSKBN1HQ277 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-trial-adblocking/...
- zaarn 8y ago
  Axel Springer (not to be confused with Springer, the publisher for scientific papers) is still trying to sue btw, they're trying to go for the angle that Adblocking prevents freedom of the press since it takes away their funding. And tbh, Axel Springer isn't the most surprising entity to sue for this, the entire publication house is a bunch of asshats, who have been cited for being the most deplorable journalists and in one case someone argued that one should be as mean and rude as legally possible to employees of Axel Springer. They have also succesfully sued the producer of an Anti-Anti-Adblocker since their Anti-Adblocker was considered DRM by the court (IIRC).
mikeryan 8y ago
This just starts a death spiral though. Slacks next step is to start detecting the objecting code and banning users from using the web interface that are found using those tools. There are a bunch of folks doing this already for ad blockers.
- mattigames 8y ago
  Is there any company that have had positive results using such tactics? It seems anyone who tries gets such a backlash and end up losing more than what they gain, plus they expose themselves to have false positives (e.g. one image didn't load due connection issues but slack falsely assumed it was an extension blocking it)
- afandian 8y ago
  Try using Slack in a browser on Android. It doesn't work. I find that really objectionable. They don't (last time I asked) distribute an APK. Instead they directed me to a pirate APK site, so I don't believe it's for security.
  - wolco 8y ago
    What browser are you using and are you upto date. Many sites don't work on mobile chrome. I find it hard to believe they would redirect you to a pirate site. Are you sure it was a pirate site and not just a third party site hosting apks
    - afandian 8y ago
      Firefox on Android. Per my other comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17874566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17874566 it was a mirror site, though I didn't save the chat log so I can't remember which one.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Try using Slack in a browser on Android. It doesn't work. It does work on Firefox for Android, if you enable Request Desktop Site. It's not optimized for small screens, though.
gnicholas 8y ago
I don't think Slack would ever go after end-users who install something like this. But they could go after the creator, who presumably created a Slack account in order to be able to build the extension, and who therefore must have agreed to the T&Cs. This could include a no-reverse-engineering clause that prohibits the sorts of things that this extension does.
- mattigames 8y ago
  Do you know about an instance where something like that already happened?
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    Which part? Not going after users or T&Cs that include a prohibition on reverse engineering? If the latter, yes this is pretty common.
    - mattigames 8y ago
      I mean suing someone who created a web extension alleging reverse engineering is against ToS
      - gnicholas 8y ago
        I don't personally know of anything that specifically. But I'd imagine that in most cases, things would unfold as they did here — with the creator pulling the extension rather than risk losing the lawsuit.

jahewson 8y ago

Sort of. It’s fine to have a disclaimer which says “this will void your warranty”, just look at smartphone jailbreaking. He’s not breaking Slack’s terms of service - his users are. But then the next logical step is to argue that he’s inducing a breach of contract by his users, which seems to be the case.

wstuartcl 8y ago
In any case, it probably is not worth likely legal costs and effort should the other party take legal action. It is one thing to theorize about legal implications, quite another to risk livelihood etc to put it to test. Defending against action takes time and money which amounts to loss in many cases even when you are successful in court.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  There is almost zero chance slack would win this case and I doubt they would even try. Adblockers inject code into sites. So do password keepers. If sites could sue adblockers because it breaks their terms of service, don't you think they would? You are not bound by the slack terms of service except in the scope of your slack account or an API connection of some type. Someone else can use my software all day long to break their terms of service, but that doesn't make me liable. I didn't agree to anything. People need to realize that terms of service are a civil contract. It's not "illegal" to break them. Especially if you didn't agree to the terms.
  - wstuartcl 8y ago
    This is the difference between fantasizing about the likelihood of outcomes when you have no skin in the game and being on the other side of a well funded adversary that is threatening a lawsuit. Put yourself in the POV of the one with skin in the game and consider that it may take years and insane expense (time/money/energy) to prevail against even a poorly founded lawsuit. Being "right", sometimes, is not worth the fight.
  - mkoryak 8y ago