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Are there legal implications to Google bots transacting with websites under false pretenses? I mean their normal web crawler identifies itself as such. Here,
by rkagerer 6y ago
Are there legal implications to Google bots transacting with websites under false pretenses?
I mean their normal web crawler identifies itself as such. Here, I feel like they're committing (very) minor fraud by putting in fake shopper information and actively hiding their identity. Not a big deal if it were just some Joe Schmoe somewhere, but at their scale might it border on harassment? The robot equivalent of a prank call?
- inetknght 6y agoYou should worry more about sellers engaging in anti-competitive behavior like bait-and-switch or price fixing.
- the_pwner224 6y agoProbably a violation of the CFAA. Lots of people hate it because they think it's overreaching, and lots of companies use it to legally threaten scrapers and security research. But in this case Google is doing mass unauthorized use of other people's computers.
- shadowgovt 6y agoIf I'm doing price comparison between online vendors, I will---as a human---put some items in the cart and get right to the edge of checkout to determine what my final bill would be. I may not close the sale if I'm looking at a better option elsewhere. How is what I'm doing materially different from what Google's doing? Is scale a factor that matters for CFAA?
- lmm 6y agoMaybe you are violating the CFAA by doing that? It's a very broad law.
- jogjayr 6y agoI think that's outdated information. ToS violations aren't prosecutable under CFAA since April.[1] 1. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/federal-judge-rules-it-not-crime-violate-websites-terms-service https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/federal-judge-rules-it...
- amelius 6y agoI think FTC should install a law that says that shops should be more transparent about their prices. That would solve the entire problem in the first place.