3 ms·

Access, yes. Display the content delivered from amazon.com, no absolutely not.

bitpush 12d ago
I'm trying to make sense of this and the best analogy I can find is using an example of physical products. 1. I can walk into Apple Store and buy Apple device (this is similar to me opening the browser and accessing amazon.com 2. If I'm busy, I can hire a person to go stand in line and buy the device (me asking Comet to shop on my behalf) The core question is does Apple (Amazon in this case) can block the hired help (Comet browser) from accessing the store. Most reasonable people would say "their store, their rules", so that goes to mean Amazon's website, Amazon's rules.
- A1kmm 12d ago
  Maybe a better analogy: They can ban you from going through their drive through on a bicycle, but can they sue bicycle manufacturers because bike riders are going through their drive through? In this analogy, it seems the originating court said yes, they can sue the bicycle manufacturer (in the analogy), but on appeal the answer was no, they cannot. That seems like the appeals court got it right to me.
  - hatthew 12d ago
    I'm not familiar with the case, but to me it sounds like the bicycle manufacturer is encouraging people to use bikes in the drive through, maybe even providing specific tools explicitly for that purpose?
    - pests 11d ago
      Even if they were, is it illegal to sell something that might violate another companies TOS? There is entire categories of products whose entire intent is to circumvent some other products limitation or rules.
- hightrix 12d ago
  3. You can walk into an Apple store and buy a phone without looking at their PCs, tablets, wall of accessories, etc. Apple cannot force you to look at everything else in their store. Similarly, Amazon cannot force you to render the content they deliver to you. They can absolutely control access to their content, but they cannot control if you actually see the content they are delivering to you.
  - bitpush 11d ago
    What if you had to sit through a presentation of their cool products before you can see the product? Or imagine, showing you short movie clips (call it trailers) before they show you the movie you paid to watch?
    - hightrix 11d ago
      Then I wouldn’t shop there or I would use a “presentation” blocker. For movies, there’s a good reason I and many others don’t go to the theater anymore.
- jerf 11d ago
  The precedent on this matter is surprisingly thin on the ground, but the legal system has declined to agree with "their store, their rules" for web sites, with a particularly interesting precedent on that matter from "Sandvig v. Barr, 451 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2020)" where the District of Columbia in 2020 said "Criminalizing terms-of-service violations risks turning each website into its own criminal jurisdiction and each webmaster into his own legislature. Such an arrangement, wherein each website's terms of service “is a law unto itself,” would raise serious problems. This concern, then, supports a narrow interpretation of the CFAA." https://opencasebook.org/casebooks/1797-tlc-casebook/resources/4.5-sandvig-v-barr/ https://opencasebook.org/casebooks/1797-tlc-casebook/resourc... (paragraph 66) But all we have is that and a couple of rulings from the Ninth Circuit, one of which is the HN link. For something this critical I'm surprised. I remember writing about this in 2001 or so and you'd think for something so consequential we'd have more lawsuits to point at by now. One wonders how many companies have considered it, looked at the thin precedents we have, and realized that while the victory would be slightly advantageous writing a loss into precedent would be completely devestating and declined to roll the dice.
- idle_zealot 11d ago
  > If I'm busy, I can hire a person to go stand in line and buy the device (me asking Comet to shop on my behalf) I feel like this is already ceding too much ground. A better analogy is "can I hire someone to read this product catalog I got in the mail for me." My browser isn't Amazon's store, it's a device for reading catalogs they send me.

I'm trying to make sense of this and the best analogy I can find is using an example of physical products. 1. I can walk into Apple Store and buy Apple device (this is similar to me opening the browser and accessing amazon.com 2. If I'm busy, I can hire a person to go stand in line and buy the device (me asking Comet to shop on my behalf) The core question is does Apple (Amazon in this case) can block the hired help (Comet browser) from accessing the store. Most reasonable people would say "their store, their rules", so that goes to mean Amazon's website, Amazon's rules.

A1kmm 12d ago
Maybe a better analogy: They can ban you from going through their drive through on a bicycle, but can they sue bicycle manufacturers because bike riders are going through their drive through? In this analogy, it seems the originating court said yes, they can sue the bicycle manufacturer (in the analogy), but on appeal the answer was no, they cannot. That seems like the appeals court got it right to me.
- hatthew 12d ago
  I'm not familiar with the case, but to me it sounds like the bicycle manufacturer is encouraging people to use bikes in the drive through, maybe even providing specific tools explicitly for that purpose?
  - pests 11d ago
    Even if they were, is it illegal to sell something that might violate another companies TOS? There is entire categories of products whose entire intent is to circumvent some other products limitation or rules.
hightrix 12d ago
3. You can walk into an Apple store and buy a phone without looking at their PCs, tablets, wall of accessories, etc. Apple cannot force you to look at everything else in their store. Similarly, Amazon cannot force you to render the content they deliver to you. They can absolutely control access to their content, but they cannot control if you actually see the content they are delivering to you.
- bitpush 11d ago
  What if you had to sit through a presentation of their cool products before you can see the product? Or imagine, showing you short movie clips (call it trailers) before they show you the movie you paid to watch?
  - hightrix 11d ago
    Then I wouldn’t shop there or I would use a “presentation” blocker. For movies, there’s a good reason I and many others don’t go to the theater anymore.
jerf 11d ago
The precedent on this matter is surprisingly thin on the ground, but the legal system has declined to agree with "their store, their rules" for web sites, with a particularly interesting precedent on that matter from "Sandvig v. Barr, 451 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2020)" where the District of Columbia in 2020 said "Criminalizing terms-of-service violations risks turning each website into its own criminal jurisdiction and each webmaster into his own legislature. Such an arrangement, wherein each website's terms of service “is a law unto itself,” would raise serious problems. This concern, then, supports a narrow interpretation of the CFAA." https://opencasebook.org/casebooks/1797-tlc-casebook/resources/4.5-sandvig-v-barr/ https://opencasebook.org/casebooks/1797-tlc-casebook/resourc... (paragraph 66) But all we have is that and a couple of rulings from the Ninth Circuit, one of which is the HN link. For something this critical I'm surprised. I remember writing about this in 2001 or so and you'd think for something so consequential we'd have more lawsuits to point at by now. One wonders how many companies have considered it, looked at the thin precedents we have, and realized that while the victory would be slightly advantageous writing a loss into precedent would be completely devestating and declined to roll the dice.
idle_zealot 11d ago
> If I'm busy, I can hire a person to go stand in line and buy the device (me asking Comet to shop on my behalf) I feel like this is already ceding too much ground. A better analogy is "can I hire someone to read this product catalog I got in the mail for me." My browser isn't Amazon's store, it's a device for reading catalogs they send me.