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The terms aren't post-facto, they're a priori. You can access the content if you paid for an account or if you're Googlebot. Impersonating Googlebot doesn't cha

The terms aren't post-facto, they're a priori. You can access the content if you paid for an account or if you're Googlebot. Impersonating Googlebot doesn't change the terms of the access. Note the description from the add-on page "This extension will mangle your browser's requests to maximize the chances of bypassing paywalls". This is where there's a meaningful difference from the Weev situation. You can also choose to not read the content if you don't feel it's worth the money.

mindslight 8y ago
The protocol is the transaction demarcation point - anything else is sophistry. Let's try out an analogous argument with physical goods: Customer goes to Home Depot, buys a bunch of $5 aviators. Sells them on Amazon for $50. The distributor sues the customer-reseller for violating their contract to not commercially resell, which undermines their expensive offerings. Customer points out they never entered into any such contract at Home Depot. The distributor claims Home Depot is a mechanical conduit that only facilitates a larger relationship, and the transaction actually took place between the customer and distributor, with the "standard" terms having been available on request. The fundamental truth is that the interests of any buyer and seller are only aligned at the exact time of sale - afterwards they diverge. What has happened is that pervasive information technology has got sellers attempting to retain some kind of interest in things after they've sold them, with the "transaction" never really ending (an oxymoron). Copyright is one of the hooks by which they're purporting to do this (which actually at the very least it needs to be reformed so a seller of "digital goods" cannot destroy your access to a copy you've paid for) As I said before, society cannot function this way - non-pure ownership can work for big tickets (eg real estate), but centralization and every item having a history simply doesn't scale. And as I also said, there is a very simple remedy for publishers - stop sending the article to people they do not want to view it! (Your argument also implies that it is illegal to suggest someone visit a URL with lynx to avoid a javascript popup)
- craftinator 8y ago
  Very well done analogy and thought experiment!
- lazulicurio 8y ago
  I don't find that analogy analogous. Alice goes to Home Depot. Aviators cost $50, but they're on sale for $5 if your name is Bob. Alice tells the cashier that her name is Bob and shows an (obviously) fake ID. The cashier isn't paid enough to care, so Alice gets the glasses for $5. I agree with you that anything Alice does after this point is her own business. I could accept an argument that Home Depot should've paid the cashier more to help prevent the issue. But I don't think that makes Alice's actions at the point of sale less fraudulent. > And as I also said, there is a very simple remedy for publishers - stop sending the article to people they do not want to view it! Which the publishers do. They don't send the article unless they think you're Googlebot. > Your argument also implies that it is illegal to suggest someone visit a URL with lynx to avoid a javascript popup My issue is with intentionally changing the user agent header to impersonate a well-known crawler that has been given access to the site under specific terms. I don't have an issue with using other browsers or javascript blockers or ad blockers. There's a difference between spoofing a client-> server request and blocking a client -> server request.
  - mindslight 8y ago
    > Which the publishers do. They don't send the article unless they think you're Googlebot. I've never had trouble viewing an article in incognito mode, or sometimes even hitting stopping a load before javascript runs, so I've been under the impression that it's mainly javascript trickery. My argument here was with that assumption, so perhaps it's moot. > Alice tells the cashier that her name is Bob and shows an (obviously) fake ID. The cashier isn't paid enough to care I'd say that the proper example is that the cashier doesn't check ID and isn't even expected to by corporate. Companies aren't even strictly against this type of soft-fraud word-of-mouth trick, as it just further helps their price discrimination and customer mindshare. Whether you get one free birthday desert per year or five, you're still buying meals. The elephant in the room is that Google could easily setup a system whereby Googlebot got secure access to the articles. I think they haven't done this because of an idea that the same pages should be served to users. So who is defrauding whom? Philosophically I'd assert that the Internet philosophy is directly opposed to the very concept of fraud - "identity" does not scale, especially across jurisdictions. We've finally got a way to formalize and mechanically execute contracts purely between private parties, so why cling to a heavyweight idea of post-facto enforcement based on nebulous ambient natural-language rules, especially as an overarching foundation? When you put a quarter into a "claw game" and it drops your prize before the chute you don't sue for "fraud" - you just stop putting quarters in.
apostacy 8y ago
> Impersonating Googlebot doesn't change the terms of the access. But I wouldn't be "impersonating" the Google bot, I would just be using it's user-agent string. That does not make me the Google bot. If a foolish publisher chooses to interpret my usage of that string as me being Google, that is not my responsibility. Just like with the Weev situation, this is another case of someone trying to shift blame for their crummy security. A user-agent string is NOT authentication. It is merely supposed to provide a hint to the webserver. I once saw a website that didn't have ads and let you view their content for free if the width was less than 700px. I guess they figured they were driving away more mobile users or something that it was worth. So, was I being criminally minded when I resized my browser to view their content instead of jumping through their hoops and giving them my email address? At a certain point, it is not my responsibility to hold their hand and play along with their pretend restrictions.

mindslight 8y ago

The protocol is the transaction demarcation point - anything else is sophistry. Let's try out an analogous argument with physical goods: Customer goes to Home Depot, buys a bunch of $5 aviators. Sells them on Amazon for $50. The distributor sues the customer-reseller for violating their contract to not commercially resell, which undermines their expensive offerings. Customer points out they never entered into any such contract at Home Depot. The distributor claims Home Depot is a mechanical conduit that only facilitates a larger relationship, and the transaction actually took place between the customer and distributor, with the "standard" terms having been available on request. The fundamental truth is that the interests of any buyer and seller are only aligned at the exact time of sale - afterwards they diverge. What has happened is that pervasive information technology has got sellers attempting to retain some kind of interest in things after they've sold them, with the "transaction" never really ending (an oxymoron). Copyright is one of the hooks by which they're purporting to do this (which actually at the very least it needs to be reformed so a seller of "digital goods" cannot destroy your access to a copy you've paid for) As I said before, society cannot function this way - non-pure ownership can work for big tickets (eg real estate), but centralization and every item having a history simply doesn't scale. And as I also said, there is a very simple remedy for publishers - stop sending the article to people they do not want to view it! (Your argument also implies that it is illegal to suggest someone visit a URL with lynx to avoid a javascript popup)

craftinator 8y ago
Very well done analogy and thought experiment!
lazulicurio 8y ago
I don't find that analogy analogous. Alice goes to Home Depot. Aviators cost $50, but they're on sale for $5 if your name is Bob. Alice tells the cashier that her name is Bob and shows an (obviously) fake ID. The cashier isn't paid enough to care, so Alice gets the glasses for $5. I agree with you that anything Alice does after this point is her own business. I could accept an argument that Home Depot should've paid the cashier more to help prevent the issue. But I don't think that makes Alice's actions at the point of sale less fraudulent. > And as I also said, there is a very simple remedy for publishers - stop sending the article to people they do not want to view it! Which the publishers do. They don't send the article unless they think you're Googlebot. > Your argument also implies that it is illegal to suggest someone visit a URL with lynx to avoid a javascript popup My issue is with intentionally changing the user agent header to impersonate a well-known crawler that has been given access to the site under specific terms. I don't have an issue with using other browsers or javascript blockers or ad blockers. There's a difference between spoofing a client-> server request and blocking a client -> server request.
- mindslight 8y ago
  > Which the publishers do. They don't send the article unless they think you're Googlebot. I've never had trouble viewing an article in incognito mode, or sometimes even hitting stopping a load before javascript runs, so I've been under the impression that it's mainly javascript trickery. My argument here was with that assumption, so perhaps it's moot. > Alice tells the cashier that her name is Bob and shows an (obviously) fake ID. The cashier isn't paid enough to care I'd say that the proper example is that the cashier doesn't check ID and isn't even expected to by corporate. Companies aren't even strictly against this type of soft-fraud word-of-mouth trick, as it just further helps their price discrimination and customer mindshare. Whether you get one free birthday desert per year or five, you're still buying meals. The elephant in the room is that Google could easily setup a system whereby Googlebot got secure access to the articles. I think they haven't done this because of an idea that the same pages should be served to users. So who is defrauding whom? Philosophically I'd assert that the Internet philosophy is directly opposed to the very concept of fraud - "identity" does not scale, especially across jurisdictions. We've finally got a way to formalize and mechanically execute contracts purely between private parties, so why cling to a heavyweight idea of post-facto enforcement based on nebulous ambient natural-language rules, especially as an overarching foundation? When you put a quarter into a "claw game" and it drops your prize before the chute you don't sue for "fraud" - you just stop putting quarters in.

apostacy 8y ago

> Impersonating Googlebot doesn't change the terms of the access. But I wouldn't be "impersonating" the Google bot, I would just be using it's user-agent string. That does not make me the Google bot. If a foolish publisher chooses to interpret my usage of that string as me being Google, that is not my responsibility. Just like with the Weev situation, this is another case of someone trying to shift blame for their crummy security. A user-agent string is NOT authentication. It is merely supposed to provide a hint to the webserver. I once saw a website that didn't have ads and let you view their content for free if the width was less than 700px. I guess they figured they were driving away more mobile users or something that it was worth. So, was I being criminally minded when I resized my browser to view their content instead of jumping through their hoops and giving them my email address? At a certain point, it is not my responsibility to hold their hand and play along with their pretend restrictions.