6 ms·

So, leboncoin.fr doesn't like my email alert webapp

66 points by jfoucher 12y ago

hbbio 12y ago
Almost incredible. An extract (translated to English): "no hyperlink TO [our site] can be done without prior agreement". I hope they're suing Google too :)
- kubiiii 12y ago
  I'm ashamed to be french when I see this kind of horse shit. The internet is not compatible with their TOS.
  - dan_bk 12y ago
    > I'm ashamed to be french No need to, it's just plain old cheap lawyer tactics, it's been around since the beginning of time: Scare people (i.e. by making them feel they're in danger) and they will do what you want. (Law seems complicated to non-lawyers, so lawyers make use of that, basically by communicating "I'm the specialist and you don't know anything about this domain, so do as I say") In the case of this story, all I'd suggest the owner of the app, to steer clear of legal issues, is: a) don't use their name, b) don't use their logo (or other very distinct parts of their Corporate Identity) c) re-launch your app (using proxies) EDIT: On second thought - they don't deserve your exclusive traffic/promotion/value you add. If you keep your app alive, you should multiply your sources (add as many similar sites as possible).
    - kubiiii 12y ago
      It was more about the TOS than the lawyer letter. People from all around the world get to be ashamed by their lawyers.
  - skrebbel 12y ago
    Why are all the French so ashamed to be French all the time? I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when a Le Pen won something somewhere. I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when an anti piracy group pirates a logo. I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when some president felt the need to compensate for something by blowing up a nuclear bomb in the pacific. Somehow, anecdotally, being ashamed to be born somewhere is a particularly French phenomenon. Why? France has all the above things, but also a great healthcare system, nice people, a somewhat functional democracy, and many other great things. There's 60 million Frenchmen. Are you going to be ashamed every time one of them does something wrong? Do you expect them to be ashamed every time you do something wrong? Instead of shame, maybe it would be more constructive to organize and do something about it. The ivory tower of the French political elite is notorious, but not unsurmountable.
    - smonff 12y ago
      It would be a pointless anyway to be ashamed to be French because of leboncoin.fr as the stuff is based on a Swedish technology
    - jmnicolas 12y ago
      Because we were once a great nation, so we have high expectations about how we are perceived in the world. I agree there's nothing to be ashamed here, especially as leboncoin position is quite understandable (and their tone not that menacing).
    - kubiiii 12y ago
      You might have a point. Imagine that I am ashamed at having been ashamed, and I'm often ashamed at french being ashamed for random reasons. Maybe we have too high expectations.
    - jphalimi 12y ago
      This is not a French phenomenon. There is a difference between political affairs, such as extreme rights winning elections and a nuclear bomb explosion, than your neighbor being an asshole. Being ashamed of something means people you consider in the same group as you do things you find not acceptable (it could be a country, as it's the case here, but also a community, a football team or whatever). In fact, being ashamed shows you'd prefer this entity to react differently to make you and the group you're considering better. Yes, we should be ashamed when someone does something wrong. In fact, we shouldn't be ashamed to be ashamed of some dumb decision. Being ashamed doesn't mean we are not doing anything else about it. You've seen Frenchmen being ashamed to be French, and that's OK. It means they're not thinking their country is the best, but they can also learn from their mistakes. And I am proud of this, as a French person, too, though I am ashamed of LeBonCoin's strategy.
    - madeofpalk 12y ago
      Americans are ashamed of being American, Australians are ashamed of being Australian, the French are ashamed of being French. It's a pretty common thing across every culture where people attribute the bad things that happen around them to the geography or culture when in reality, there are crappy drivers all over the world.
  - dreewoo 12y ago
    A lot of websites use similar rules in their TOS. I think those terms are deliberately broad so they can cover a lot of use cases if necessary.
- justbaker 12y ago
  http://leboncoin.fr http://leboncoin.fr I did it! and they said I couldn't..
  - malka 12y ago
    leboncoin.fr is gonna sue YC now. What have you done...
torvix 12y ago
they did the same thing to lebitcoin.fr last year http://www.numerama.com/magazine/26352-le-bon-coin-demande-a-lebitcoin-de-cesser-son-activite.html http://www.numerama.com/magazine/26352-le-bon-coin-demande-a...
- Royaleagle 12y ago
  It's interesting to see that they allow http://www.site-annonce.fr http://www.site-annonce.fr to use their ads. I think there is a lack of a geolocalisation service on the lbc website. I know that http://www.spothers.com/fr/ http://www.spothers.com/fr/ is working on it. A umpteenth tentative to beat lbc.
baby 12y ago
Leboncoin is so badly made it's a joke, and they completely monopolize the market. I'm raging just thinking I'm gonna have to use it to look for an apartment and sell my furniture in Bordeaux those next months. Makes me want to build a competition.
- thibauts 12y ago
  This is a challenge I would gladly undertake with you if you have a plan. I'm from Bordeaux too btw ;)
  - thibauts 12y ago
    That being said I wrote my own scraper & mail notifier for the same site to find an appartment about 1 year ago (it was june too) and it proved very valuable. I was notified on my mobile right when ads went online and was always first to call. I quickly found a nice place, affordable, direct to the owner and without all the paper hurdles. The code was in python and one of my friends may still have it around if you're interested.
    - baby 12y ago
      I am interested!
- agumonkey 12y ago
  I wanted to write a python wrapper (scraper) for leboncoin, but building a new one is tempting.
- kubiiii 12y ago
  Salut confrère Bordelais! The thing is that with 24 M+ listings and a free basic service, no one will ever be able to compete. Maybe alternatives would be possible if limited to a specific area. The weak spot of leboncoin is that you need to pay a stranger before getting your stuff. There is a non negligible portion of scam. If you want a hand...
  - 12y ago
meepmorp 12y ago
This post is confusing both because I do not speak French and because the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet, so I read that as LeBron Coin. Which doesn't seem all that bad for a gimmicky crypto currency, honestly.
- jfoucher 12y ago
  So there's this website that's the 7th in france according to Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/FR http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/FR) It's the craigslist of france. They don't have email alerts so I built a web app that does just that. Then they noticed the traffic from my server (I guess) and blocked my IP from scraping their site, making the app basically useless, so I just forgot about it. Now they are telling that I'm using their trademark in a way that can make users confuse my service with theirs, that according to their TOS I can't event link to their website without authorization (am I even bound by their TOS if I don't use their website?) and so on and so forth. It was just a side project for me, so I don't mind dropping it. The source code is on Github though if anyone is interested (https://github.com/jfoucher/lebonmail https://github.com/jfoucher/lebonmail)
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    Use proxies.
    - alistairjcbrown 12y ago
      That's a bad idea - doing that shows intent to circumvent an intended block. See the last notable case "Craigslist v. 3Taps": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Notable_cases_and_decisions_referring_to_the_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#No...
      - wukerplank 12y ago
        I'm not sure if this is applicable to French/European law. Nevertheless: If somebody doesn't want you to scrape, don't do it.
eaxbin 12y ago
Anyone care to explain, to the non-french-speaking crowd, exactly what leboncoin is? And what the letter says?
- kubiiii 12y ago
  This is our craiglist. And they also have the craiglist of many other countries. The website op made crawls leboncoin and other websites to look for specific items for people. The letter mentions both the use of a "closely" related name and the linking of listings as in violation of the TOS.
  - eaxbin 12y ago
    Thanks! That's, fairly crazy.
wallzz 12y ago
In brief , Craiglist french website version known as "leboncoin.fr" sent a letter to the author of "lebonmail.fr" a website that uses leboncoin.fr API to send its users a daily email alerts of items to be sold on "leboncoin.fr". The letter ask the author to stop using the service provided by leboncoin.fr immediately .
- kubiiii 12y ago
  There is no official API for Leboncoin, neither alert option, explaining the creation of the op website.
  - wallzz 12y ago
    Yes there is no official API , basically the tool scrap HTML website content, I don't know if that is legal or illegal according to EU laws. but its like scrapping Google search result, and I remember that it was illegal in the US law. I think leboncoin.fr has the right to ask him to stop the service. but they also have to offer an API to the developers who seek to tweak the service .
    - mivv 12y ago
      They have to? I don't think so...
- michaelhoffman 12y ago
  In the U.S., this would be like someone creating a Craigslist screen scraper and calling it Craigsmail. Craiglist might have something to say about that.
julie1 12y ago
to sum up the author of the news and recipient of the mail cannot read french correctly. It is a cease and desist letter on the use of a name «lebonXXX.fr» that in all due respect seem is a clear parasitism of a registred brand: it bears a similar name, it is related to the activity of the original site. And le boncoin.fr is registered @ l'INPI (national registration office of brands). In PI law, the infringement is about the confusion that results in the brand aka reputation and not on the use of an external API. It does not mean I support leboncoin, because I could not care less. @ least I don't appreciate people misleading others based on fake victimisation. Cher jonathan: en matière de droit «nul ne peut se prévaloir de ses propres turpitudes»
- kubiiii 12y ago
  You have a point, but even if the author rebranded his website, he would still violate the TOS when providing direct links to listings (and maybe when scraping the website but this is not clearly forbidden in the TOS). The discussion is mostly about this (I think).
  - julie1 12y ago
    This would be another infraction :) And the author is misdirecting the readers by providing a document not related to the claim he makes (TOS infringement vs «droit des marques» infringement). EDIT/PS «nul ne peut se prévaloir de ses propres turpitudes» means that you cannot prevail your self of any wrongs if it is initially resulting from you not respecting the law. For instance if you build your company on a clearly fraudulent base (parasitism), you cannot claim for any reparation if you are shut down because it is a clear consequence of your actions. As a result, for the lawyer «faisceau de présomption valant preuve» his credibility in front of any juridiction would be voided.
    - kubiiii 12y ago
      This other infraction is also clearly mentionned in the lawyer letter.
  - PeterisP 12y ago
lbr78480 12y ago
Hello, I am now building some kind of (read) API to the website. The work is in progress, and on a restricted area (one country) I am able to index all pages in near real time (near...). Maybe someone of you may be interested into some info or collaboration ? Here is my email jhin2g9e8o2ik7j at jetable dot org Bye Lbr
- Royaleagle 12y ago
  I have mailed you
pilooch 12y ago
leboncoin.fr is known for developing all necessary tools internally. So... they should hire this guy, that's all! losers...
eloisant 12y ago
Next time build a browser extension or a mobile app. This way the traffic comes from all your users, not one single IP address and you have a better chance to stay off the radar.
bertil 12y ago
Scraping is clearly covered by robots.txt, one of the earliest conventions on the web. In their case (http://www.leboncoin.fr/robots.txt http://www.leboncoin.fr/robots.txt) they allow the spiders from most commercial search engine, but disallow all others. I think it's a terrible idea from Schibsted (the Norwegian owners of the company) to react like this; but then again, lawyers...
yp_all 12y ago
Correct me if I am wrong, but maybe one way to look at the CFAA or situations like this one is that every website has the right to deny access to any particular user. This can be done via firewall ruleset but also via cease and desist letter. That seems reasonable. But... for this type of approach to make sense with respect to a website that wants as much traffic as posssible, we have to make certain assumptions. One assumption is that few if any users will automate their usage. If hundreds of people began to write their own "apps" to automate how they use this website, then the lawyers would have a more serious problem that they might not be able to solve. The website operators might have to reconsider their access model. Could they move to a subscription-only service? Could they use a whitelist of IP address blocks? Could they still be competitive if they began to move away from open access? In my opinion, the practicality of the cease and desist letter approach to website access (anyone can access except if we tell you to stop) is reliant on expected patterns of usage. When kids learn how to program in school, should that day ever come, then they will learn how to automate. They wil be able to write their own "apps". Will cease and desist letters and the judicial system be fully automated at that point? (The evolution of the DMCA comes to mind.) The RIAA and others have tried to sue large groups of users all at once and it did not achieve anything except bad PR. Could website operators bring proceedings against large numbers of users and succeed?
dgerges 12y ago
Hi Johnathan, they deliberately don't want to provide email alerts or even a decent search because that would break their rather excellent business models (users spend hours browsing pages of listing rather than searching which drives page views and ads impressions). They killed a site similar to yours a few years ago (leboncoinrss or something along the lines I believe). I wouldn't try to base a business on something which hijack the user experience they have created. On my spare time I'm scrapping their site to do some data analysis and so far despite the traffic I generate no problem. Let me know if you want to discuss that.

66 points by jfoucher 12y ago

hbbio 12y ago

Almost incredible. An extract (translated to English): "no hyperlink TO [our site] can be done without prior agreement". I hope they're suing Google too :)

kubiiii 12y ago
I'm ashamed to be french when I see this kind of horse shit. The internet is not compatible with their TOS.
- dan_bk 12y ago
  > I'm ashamed to be french No need to, it's just plain old cheap lawyer tactics, it's been around since the beginning of time: Scare people (i.e. by making them feel they're in danger) and they will do what you want. (Law seems complicated to non-lawyers, so lawyers make use of that, basically by communicating "I'm the specialist and you don't know anything about this domain, so do as I say") In the case of this story, all I'd suggest the owner of the app, to steer clear of legal issues, is: a) don't use their name, b) don't use their logo (or other very distinct parts of their Corporate Identity) c) re-launch your app (using proxies) EDIT: On second thought - they don't deserve your exclusive traffic/promotion/value you add. If you keep your app alive, you should multiply your sources (add as many similar sites as possible).
  - kubiiii 12y ago
    It was more about the TOS than the lawyer letter. People from all around the world get to be ashamed by their lawyers.
- skrebbel 12y ago
  Why are all the French so ashamed to be French all the time? I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when a Le Pen won something somewhere. I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when an anti piracy group pirates a logo. I've seen Frenchmen ashamed to be French when some president felt the need to compensate for something by blowing up a nuclear bomb in the pacific. Somehow, anecdotally, being ashamed to be born somewhere is a particularly French phenomenon. Why? France has all the above things, but also a great healthcare system, nice people, a somewhat functional democracy, and many other great things. There's 60 million Frenchmen. Are you going to be ashamed every time one of them does something wrong? Do you expect them to be ashamed every time you do something wrong? Instead of shame, maybe it would be more constructive to organize and do something about it. The ivory tower of the French political elite is notorious, but not unsurmountable.
  - smonff 12y ago
    It would be a pointless anyway to be ashamed to be French because of leboncoin.fr as the stuff is based on a Swedish technology
  - jmnicolas 12y ago
    Because we were once a great nation, so we have high expectations about how we are perceived in the world. I agree there's nothing to be ashamed here, especially as leboncoin position is quite understandable (and their tone not that menacing).
  - kubiiii 12y ago
    You might have a point. Imagine that I am ashamed at having been ashamed, and I'm often ashamed at french being ashamed for random reasons. Maybe we have too high expectations.
  - jphalimi 12y ago
    This is not a French phenomenon. There is a difference between political affairs, such as extreme rights winning elections and a nuclear bomb explosion, than your neighbor being an asshole. Being ashamed of something means people you consider in the same group as you do things you find not acceptable (it could be a country, as it's the case here, but also a community, a football team or whatever). In fact, being ashamed shows you'd prefer this entity to react differently to make you and the group you're considering better. Yes, we should be ashamed when someone does something wrong. In fact, we shouldn't be ashamed to be ashamed of some dumb decision. Being ashamed doesn't mean we are not doing anything else about it. You've seen Frenchmen being ashamed to be French, and that's OK. It means they're not thinking their country is the best, but they can also learn from their mistakes. And I am proud of this, as a French person, too, though I am ashamed of LeBonCoin's strategy.
  - madeofpalk 12y ago
    Americans are ashamed of being American, Australians are ashamed of being Australian, the French are ashamed of being French. It's a pretty common thing across every culture where people attribute the bad things that happen around them to the geography or culture when in reality, there are crappy drivers all over the world.
- dreewoo 12y ago
  A lot of websites use similar rules in their TOS. I think those terms are deliberately broad so they can cover a lot of use cases if necessary.
justbaker 12y ago
http://leboncoin.fr http://leboncoin.fr I did it! and they said I couldn't..
- malka 12y ago
  leboncoin.fr is gonna sue YC now. What have you done...

torvix 12y ago

they did the same thing to lebitcoin.fr last year http://www.numerama.com/magazine/26352-le-bon-coin-demande-a-lebitcoin-de-cesser-son-activite.html http://www.numerama.com/magazine/26352-le-bon-coin-demande-a...

Royaleagle 12y ago
It's interesting to see that they allow http://www.site-annonce.fr http://www.site-annonce.fr to use their ads. I think there is a lack of a geolocalisation service on the lbc website. I know that http://www.spothers.com/fr/ http://www.spothers.com/fr/ is working on it. A umpteenth tentative to beat lbc.

baby 12y ago

Leboncoin is so badly made it's a joke, and they completely monopolize the market. I'm raging just thinking I'm gonna have to use it to look for an apartment and sell my furniture in Bordeaux those next months. Makes me want to build a competition.

thibauts 12y ago
This is a challenge I would gladly undertake with you if you have a plan. I'm from Bordeaux too btw ;)
- thibauts 12y ago
  That being said I wrote my own scraper & mail notifier for the same site to find an appartment about 1 year ago (it was june too) and it proved very valuable. I was notified on my mobile right when ads went online and was always first to call. I quickly found a nice place, affordable, direct to the owner and without all the paper hurdles. The code was in python and one of my friends may still have it around if you're interested.
  - baby 12y ago
    I am interested!
agumonkey 12y ago
I wanted to write a python wrapper (scraper) for leboncoin, but building a new one is tempting.
kubiiii 12y ago
Salut confrère Bordelais! The thing is that with 24 M+ listings and a free basic service, no one will ever be able to compete. Maybe alternatives would be possible if limited to a specific area. The weak spot of leboncoin is that you need to pay a stranger before getting your stuff. There is a non negligible portion of scam. If you want a hand...
- 12y ago

meepmorp 12y ago

This post is confusing both because I do not speak French and because the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet, so I read that as LeBron Coin. Which doesn't seem all that bad for a gimmicky crypto currency, honestly.

jfoucher 12y ago
So there's this website that's the 7th in france according to Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/FR http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/FR) It's the craigslist of france. They don't have email alerts so I built a web app that does just that. Then they noticed the traffic from my server (I guess) and blocked my IP from scraping their site, making the app basically useless, so I just forgot about it. Now they are telling that I'm using their trademark in a way that can make users confuse my service with theirs, that according to their TOS I can't event link to their website without authorization (am I even bound by their TOS if I don't use their website?) and so on and so forth. It was just a side project for me, so I don't mind dropping it. The source code is on Github though if anyone is interested (https://github.com/jfoucher/lebonmail https://github.com/jfoucher/lebonmail)
- ekianjo 12y ago
  Use proxies.
  - alistairjcbrown 12y ago
    That's a bad idea - doing that shows intent to circumvent an intended block. See the last notable case "Craigslist v. 3Taps": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Notable_cases_and_decisions_referring_to_the_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#No...
    - wukerplank 12y ago
      I'm not sure if this is applicable to French/European law. Nevertheless: If somebody doesn't want you to scrape, don't do it.

eaxbin 12y ago

Anyone care to explain, to the non-french-speaking crowd, exactly what leboncoin is? And what the letter says?

kubiiii 12y ago
This is our craiglist. And they also have the craiglist of many other countries. The website op made crawls leboncoin and other websites to look for specific items for people. The letter mentions both the use of a "closely" related name and the linking of listings as in violation of the TOS.
- eaxbin 12y ago
  Thanks! That's, fairly crazy.

wallzz 12y ago

In brief , Craiglist french website version known as "leboncoin.fr" sent a letter to the author of "lebonmail.fr" a website that uses leboncoin.fr API to send its users a daily email alerts of items to be sold on "leboncoin.fr". The letter ask the author to stop using the service provided by leboncoin.fr immediately .

kubiiii 12y ago
There is no official API for Leboncoin, neither alert option, explaining the creation of the op website.
- wallzz 12y ago
  Yes there is no official API , basically the tool scrap HTML website content, I don't know if that is legal or illegal according to EU laws. but its like scrapping Google search result, and I remember that it was illegal in the US law. I think leboncoin.fr has the right to ask him to stop the service. but they also have to offer an API to the developers who seek to tweak the service .
  - mivv 12y ago
    They have to? I don't think so...
michaelhoffman 12y ago
In the U.S., this would be like someone creating a Craigslist screen scraper and calling it Craigsmail. Craiglist might have something to say about that.

julie1 12y ago

to sum up the author of the news and recipient of the mail cannot read french correctly. It is a cease and desist letter on the use of a name «lebonXXX.fr» that in all due respect seem is a clear parasitism of a registred brand: it bears a similar name, it is related to the activity of the original site. And le boncoin.fr is registered @ l'INPI (national registration office of brands). In PI law, the infringement is about the confusion that results in the brand aka reputation and not on the use of an external API. It does not mean I support leboncoin, because I could not care less. @ least I don't appreciate people misleading others based on fake victimisation. Cher jonathan: en matière de droit «nul ne peut se prévaloir de ses propres turpitudes»

kubiiii 12y ago
You have a point, but even if the author rebranded his website, he would still violate the TOS when providing direct links to listings (and maybe when scraping the website but this is not clearly forbidden in the TOS). The discussion is mostly about this (I think).
- julie1 12y ago
  This would be another infraction :) And the author is misdirecting the readers by providing a document not related to the claim he makes (TOS infringement vs «droit des marques» infringement). EDIT/PS «nul ne peut se prévaloir de ses propres turpitudes» means that you cannot prevail your self of any wrongs if it is initially resulting from you not respecting the law. For instance if you build your company on a clearly fraudulent base (parasitism), you cannot claim for any reparation if you are shut down because it is a clear consequence of your actions. As a result, for the lawyer «faisceau de présomption valant preuve» his credibility in front of any juridiction would be voided.
  - kubiiii 12y ago
    This other infraction is also clearly mentionned in the lawyer letter.
- PeterisP 12y ago

lbr78480 12y ago

Hello, I am now building some kind of (read) API to the website. The work is in progress, and on a restricted area (one country) I am able to index all pages in near real time (near...). Maybe someone of you may be interested into some info or collaboration ? Here is my email jhin2g9e8o2ik7j at jetable dot org Bye Lbr

Royaleagle 12y ago
I have mailed you

pilooch 12y ago

leboncoin.fr is known for developing all necessary tools internally. So... they should hire this guy, that's all! losers...

eloisant 12y ago

Next time build a browser extension or a mobile app. This way the traffic comes from all your users, not one single IP address and you have a better chance to stay off the radar.

bertil 12y ago

Scraping is clearly covered by robots.txt, one of the earliest conventions on the web. In their case (http://www.leboncoin.fr/robots.txt http://www.leboncoin.fr/robots.txt) they allow the spiders from most commercial search engine, but disallow all others. I think it's a terrible idea from Schibsted (the Norwegian owners of the company) to react like this; but then again, lawyers...

yp_all 12y ago

Correct me if I am wrong, but maybe one way to look at the CFAA or situations like this one is that every website has the right to deny access to any particular user. This can be done via firewall ruleset but also via cease and desist letter. That seems reasonable. But... for this type of approach to make sense with respect to a website that wants as much traffic as posssible, we have to make certain assumptions. One assumption is that few if any users will automate their usage. If hundreds of people began to write their own "apps" to automate how they use this website, then the lawyers would have a more serious problem that they might not be able to solve. The website operators might have to reconsider their access model. Could they move to a subscription-only service? Could they use a whitelist of IP address blocks? Could they still be competitive if they began to move away from open access? In my opinion, the practicality of the cease and desist letter approach to website access (anyone can access except if we tell you to stop) is reliant on expected patterns of usage. When kids learn how to program in school, should that day ever come, then they will learn how to automate. They wil be able to write their own "apps". Will cease and desist letters and the judicial system be fully automated at that point? (The evolution of the DMCA comes to mind.) The RIAA and others have tried to sue large groups of users all at once and it did not achieve anything except bad PR. Could website operators bring proceedings against large numbers of users and succeed?

dgerges 12y ago

Hi Johnathan, they deliberately don't want to provide email alerts or even a decent search because that would break their rather excellent business models (users spend hours browsing pages of listing rather than searching which drives page views and ads impressions). They killed a site similar to yours a few years ago (leboncoinrss or something along the lines I believe). I wouldn't try to base a business on something which hijack the user experience they have created. On my spare time I'm scrapping their site to do some data analysis and so far despite the traffic I generate no problem. Let me know if you want to discuss that.