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EFF, Gator Against Other Pop-ups?

Posted by Hemos on from the the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend dept.

The Register reports that Gator has filed suit against Extended Stay America Inc to ensure that Extended cannot block its ads. Gator's argument is that consumers should be able to decide what they see on the Web and not Web site owners. It said in its suit that Extended Stay America has no right to prevent computer users from choosing to get its software and "viewing separate works, comprising advertising on that user's own computer screen, even when other works share the screen." Meanwhile, the EFF is considering supporting Gator's case, saying the issue is about who controls a computer when people go on-line.

1 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. A reasoned argument against Gator by stephen_wang · · Score: 2, Informative

    First, I'm not a trained legal professional so I can't profess to having highly informed knowledge of the case or of the legal background (I'm just an enthusiastic supporter with a sixth grade education :) ).

    Nonetheless, while I'm usually in step with the EFF's positions, it seems to me that defending Gator in this matter would be questionable. If you remove any bias regarding the alleged shadiness of Gator's previous business practices and just examine the question of allowing or disallowing people w/ certain software to browse the site, I still think it's shaky ground.

    Here's a real-world example: Private brick-and-mortar retail businesses on the whole are still allowed to reject service to certain customers to a large degree.

    When a user requests a specific page from a business's server (in this case, ExtendedStayAmerica), it's not as if the transaction is completely FREE to the business -- There is a minimal cost (albeit miniscule) to process the page and serve the page out on bandwidth. There IS a cost to the private business for providing this service. It isn't until AFTER the page out to the client's browser/computer that the actual "bits" are then "transferred" to the client. The burden resides on the server first, not the client. Consequently, the private business should STILL have some leeway in controlling who places that burden on their servers.

    I understand that this decision could potentially mean that business could "exclude" Mozilla because of it's pop-up restrictive abilities. Nonetheless, it's THEIR right whether they want to allow users of this software access to THEIR servers. From a business perspective, it'd be pretty stupid to ignore the Mozilla-using community; nonetheless, it's their right to do so if they want to shoot themselves in the foot.

    What's the difference between the private owner of a fancy restaurant who rejects a person who isn't wearing a coat and tie and ExtendedStayAmerica disallowing Gator users who, albeit tangentially, are using ExtendedStay's services at ExtendedStay's expense?

    Again, I'm not a legal scholar, so I might be completely off, but as an avid and longtime supporter of the EFF, I would advise them to more carefully look at the situation before jumping into the pool.