They're not being charged with "writing a service", because writing software isn't illegal no matter what it does. They're being charged with operating a servi

They're not being charged with "writing a service", because writing software isn't illegal no matter what it does. They're being charged with operating a service. Which they may very well have done. It sounds like they were at least running the front end user interface stuff, and that might be enough. But what makes it interesting is that the real core parts of the whole system were (and still are) autonomous. Those contracts could (and still can) be used without them doing anything at all. So they were not operating those. And it's not so obvious that there is any settled law that applies to those core contracts.