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I don't understand what the researchers violated - it looks like they didn't sign the FB's EULA, nor did they perform anything resembling CFAA violation. It is

by trhway 6y ago

I don't understand what the researchers violated - it looks like they didn't sign the FB's EULA, nor did they perform anything resembling CFAA violation. It is the FB users who signed the EULA and use "unapproved" user-agent to access FB services and to voluntarily share the data (isn't FB a sharing platform btw?) in "unapproved" way. Thus FB should go after the real violators - their users. I wonder why FB didn't do it ... I mean i can write any stupid EULA, yet until you agree to it my C&D based on that EULA is just my personal hallucinations, and even if you agree to it, your communication/business/etc. partners don't magically become bound by it too.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Facebook says it's a privacy issue. So it doesn't make sense to go after individual users - users can violate their own privacy if they really want - but it might make sense to go after the researchers if Facebook thinks they're tricking people into giving up more privacy than they expect. (I hate to sound like a broken record, because this comes up truly constantly, but the Cambridge Analytica scandal was caused by an academic researcher collecting voluntarily shared data.)
- trhway 6y ago
  Cambridge Analytica was doing it on FB platform. Thus it isn't related to the current situation.