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As an attorney who focuses in this area, I can say that the most interesting question is first where this case will be decided. Texas, and the Northern District

As an attorney who focuses in this area, I can say that the most interesting question is first where this case will be decided. Texas, and the Northern District of Texas in particular, has historically been the worst jurisdiction in the country for web scrapers to litigate. Southwest has a long history of litigating successfully there, including two cases from just last year. If TPG is going to win, first they'll need to win the jurisdictional question of whether the case will be decided in Delaware or Texas.

hlbjhblbljib 5y ago
I'm surprised more businesses don't ban all of Texas as customers to prevent any litigation happening there.
- artificial 5y ago
  Businesses sue? Blame customers! In order to save the village we had to destroy the village! There needs to be some massive reforms, especially with copyright.
- paxys 5y ago
  Banning the second largest user base in the country isn't usually a good business strategy
  - rhizome 5y ago
    It's funny how regionalism pops up on the internet. Thing is, it's less than 10% of the country (and surely not all of those 29MM are on the internet), and there are other businesses surviving just fine foregoing a TAM of the whole country.
    - ksdale 5y ago
      How can you be so sure it's not regionalism that's causing you to dismiss nearly 10% of one of the largest, richest countries in the world as inconsequential?
      - rhizome 5y ago
        Oh, it absolutely is regionalism, in the form of "Texas is a corrupt legal shitshow and it can be a smart business move to refuse to do any business there." And because HN only allows me like 3 comments a day, I'd like to emphasize "can."
      - throwawaygh 5y ago
        The top comment is from a legal expert basically saying that TPM's success in this lawsuit depends on avoiding Texas a jurisdiction, and the product in question is not possible without winning this lawsuit. It's not that Texas is inconsequential. It's that the choice is "cut off Texas or risk the entire business in the other 49 states".
  - sneak 5y ago
    Not all users are created equal. This is why many internet businesses cater exclusively to a wealthy country that contains only 6% (that is, excluding 94% of internet users) of the people on the internet.
- beauzero 5y ago
  It's the second most populous (~29M) state behind California.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > I'm surprised more businesses don't ban all of Texas as customers to prevent any litigation happening there. Businesses are often the ones structuring agreements so that they can sue customers there and so that customers are forced to sue them there, so...that would seem counterproductive. Even before considering the size of the market you’d be cutting off.
- randrews 5y ago
  American Airlines' headquarters is in Fort Worth, so banning Texas customers would be a peculiar move...
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    In this case, it would be TPM banning Texas customers, since Texas is the favorable venue for AA. That doesn't seem like as big a deal, since TPM doesn't have a giant corporate headquarters to relocate and can cutting Texas from the TAM isn't that big of a deal.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into regional flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tuckerconnelly 5y ago
Kieran! Kieran (OP) is a friend of mine, highly competent, and I highly recommend his comprehensive legal guide to web scraping: https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/a-comprehensive-legal-guide-to-web-scraping-in-the-us/ https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/a-comprehensive-legal-guide-to...
- divbzero 5y ago
  Thank you sharing the link. I find it amusingly appropriate that viewing this legal guide requires agreeing to Terms & Conditions, but appreciate that it’s one of the shortest Terms & Conditions I’ve ever seen easy to read and understand within seconds.
  - KieranMac 5y ago
    Haha! Given that the article is about scraping, I figured some prudence with respect to people copying and pasting my work somewhere else was warranted!
- KieranMac 5y ago
  Thanks, Tucker!
- ape4 5y ago
  Just for fun, here is the robots.txt from that site: # Default robots file version:2 User-agent: \* Disallow: /calendar/action\* Disallow: /events/action\* Allow: /*.css Allow: /*.js Disallow: /\*? Crawl-delay: 3 Sitemap: https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/sitemap_index.xml
- sneak 5y ago
  [flagged]
artdigital 5y ago
As a non-american reader, it feels bizarre to me that the direction of a case changes so drastically depending on where it will be held, within the same country
- callalex 5y ago
  We tend to helplessly accept a lot of out in the open corruption here.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  For what it's worth the US is more like 51 countries or the EU. There are radically different laws in different states and even different rights

hlbjhblbljib 5y ago

I'm surprised more businesses don't ban all of Texas as customers to prevent any litigation happening there.

artificial 5y ago
Businesses sue? Blame customers! In order to save the village we had to destroy the village! There needs to be some massive reforms, especially with copyright.
paxys 5y ago
Banning the second largest user base in the country isn't usually a good business strategy
- rhizome 5y ago
  It's funny how regionalism pops up on the internet. Thing is, it's less than 10% of the country (and surely not all of those 29MM are on the internet), and there are other businesses surviving just fine foregoing a TAM of the whole country.
  - ksdale 5y ago
    How can you be so sure it's not regionalism that's causing you to dismiss nearly 10% of one of the largest, richest countries in the world as inconsequential?
    - rhizome 5y ago
      Oh, it absolutely is regionalism, in the form of "Texas is a corrupt legal shitshow and it can be a smart business move to refuse to do any business there." And because HN only allows me like 3 comments a day, I'd like to emphasize "can."
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      The top comment is from a legal expert basically saying that TPM's success in this lawsuit depends on avoiding Texas a jurisdiction, and the product in question is not possible without winning this lawsuit. It's not that Texas is inconsequential. It's that the choice is "cut off Texas or risk the entire business in the other 49 states".
- sneak 5y ago
  Not all users are created equal. This is why many internet businesses cater exclusively to a wealthy country that contains only 6% (that is, excluding 94% of internet users) of the people on the internet.
beauzero 5y ago
It's the second most populous (~29M) state behind California.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I'm surprised more businesses don't ban all of Texas as customers to prevent any litigation happening there. Businesses are often the ones structuring agreements so that they can sue customers there and so that customers are forced to sue them there, so...that would seem counterproductive. Even before considering the size of the market you’d be cutting off.
randrews 5y ago
American Airlines' headquarters is in Fort Worth, so banning Texas customers would be a peculiar move...
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  In this case, it would be TPM banning Texas customers, since Texas is the favorable venue for AA. That doesn't seem like as big a deal, since TPM doesn't have a giant corporate headquarters to relocate and can cutting Texas from the TAM isn't that big of a deal.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into regional flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tuckerconnelly 5y ago

Kieran! Kieran (OP) is a friend of mine, highly competent, and I highly recommend his comprehensive legal guide to web scraping: https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/a-comprehensive-legal-guide-to-web-scraping-in-the-us/ https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/a-comprehensive-legal-guide-to...

divbzero 5y ago
Thank you sharing the link. I find it amusingly appropriate that viewing this legal guide requires agreeing to Terms & Conditions, but appreciate that it’s one of the shortest Terms & Conditions I’ve ever seen easy to read and understand within seconds.
- KieranMac 5y ago
  Haha! Given that the article is about scraping, I figured some prudence with respect to people copying and pasting my work somewhere else was warranted!
KieranMac 5y ago
Thanks, Tucker!
ape4 5y ago
Just for fun, here is the robots.txt from that site: # Default robots file version:2 User-agent: \* Disallow: /calendar/action\* Disallow: /events/action\* Allow: /*.css Allow: /*.js Disallow: /\*? Crawl-delay: 3 Sitemap: https://mccarthygarberlaw.com/sitemap_index.xml
sneak 5y ago
[flagged]

artdigital 5y ago

As a non-american reader, it feels bizarre to me that the direction of a case changes so drastically depending on where it will be held, within the same country

callalex 5y ago
We tend to helplessly accept a lot of out in the open corruption here.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
For what it's worth the US is more like 51 countries or the EU. There are radically different laws in different states and even different rights