I can't help but feel that you're ignoring what people are saying here. Nobody is claiming it's illegal†; we're saying it's bad. You can repeat that the law is

I can't help but feel that you're ignoring what people are saying here. Nobody is claiming it's illegal†; we're saying it's bad. You can repeat that the law is on your side till the cows come home, but it won't make a difference because nobody is arguing that. I agree that it's legal, but that doesn't mean it isn't harmful to the Web at large. Some forms of predatory lending are legal (and even more were legal in the past), but they are nonetheless seen as a slimy business. Nobody other than a prosecutor cares if a loan shark can legally justify what he does — people dislike loan sharks because they take advantage of others and act in a way that is generally harmful to society, not because the law happens to be against them at some particular point in time. And to be clear, I am not trying to attack you or Jacques personally here. I know that even if you weren't doing it, there are plenty of others who still would. Regardless, I feel very strongly that this industry hurts the Web as a whole. It functions in a way that's reminiscent of a protection racket, or the kind of corruption that's endemic in the Chinese government. † Granted, in the "thug with a gun" analogy, that act was illegal, but the point was that a confused old lady trespassing is also illegal. It's not the binary state of legal or illegal that makes the big difference there, but the ill intent and the harm done. The people being robbed wouldn't feel better if the thug with a gun were working for a loan shark who happened to be operating under a legal technicality.