3 ms·

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

• 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.
  • lazulicurio 8y ago
    > 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. Typically publishers will use a combination of cookies and javascript to attempt to enforce a soft limit of X articles per month for normal users. Publishers also use UA sniffing to give unrestricted access to Googlebot and other crawlers. Circumventing the former by blocking cookies or javascript definitely should be legal, because the client should be control of their local computer. Spoofing requests to take advantage of the latter (which is what this specific extension is doing) isn't okay IMO. > 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? Something other users have suggested[1] in response to this article. Maybe that will happen in the future, but I think it's a whataboutism with regards to this specific incident. Google explicitly supports paywalled content[2], so I don't think it's fair to say that publishers are defrauding Google. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18582893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18582893 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18584014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18584014
• harshreality 8y ago
  I don't find your analogy analogous either. Not only did you equate physical property to IP, but even if you accept that equivalence for the purpose of argument, your analogy seems like it would be better if... Home Depot gives (more like leases, when taking into account that copyright doesn't allow transitive redistribution... no first sale doctrine for intangible/unfixed IP) the aviators to Bob for free, knowing that Bob will take a bunch, set up a table outside that looks like he's giving away free sunglasses, but when you pick up a pair a Home Depot employee comes out, snatches them away from you, and starts pressuring you to get you to buy a pair. I'd classify that as a persuasion pattern, which is partly why this is so polarizing (bad pun, sorry...). You had the aviators in your hand, or in Google's case, you read a snippet they had indexed. You can practically taste it, metaphorically speaking, and then comes the hard sell. Either you pay them for the thing because you were so close to getting it and aren't going to let a few dollars stop you, or you get angry because you had the thing you thought you were about to get snatched away from you. The seller is counting on that, by grabbing for the product, you're committed to getting it even if you discover it actually costs money.
  • lazulicurio 8y ago
    > Not only did you equate physical property to IP Tracking the ownership of the aviators is a non sequitur, as the issue occurs at the point of transaction, not before or after. > [Bob] set[s] up a table outside that looks like he's giving away free sunglasses, but when you pick up a pair a Home Depot employee comes out, snatches them away from you, and starts pressuring you to get you to buy a pair > You had the aviators in your hand, or in Google's case, you read a snippet they had indexed. You can practically taste it, metaphorically speaking, and then comes the hard sell I don't think that just because a publisher makes content free to one user for one use case it obligates them to make content free to all users for all use cases. Does a studio including snippets of a movie in a trailer mean that the movie has to be distributed for free? I would argue Google's actions are more akin to an advertising or PR firm drumming up interest by showing bits of the article to consumers. If I had to condense my thoughts into a couple of bullet points: 1) There is a colorable difference between ad blockers and what this extension is doing 2) I think it is unfair to characterize disapproval of this specific extension as an attack on ad blockers in general 3) Publishers have the right to give samples of their content to search providers without them being obligated to make the content free for everyone