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Dutch Case Says Email Harvesting Illegal

Posted by Hemos on from the no-legal-no-mo' dept.

leomekenkamp writes "According to the /. readers there is probably something good as well as something bad in what a Dutch judge had to say in the case of E-mailgids versus NTS: NTS was convicted of illegally harvesting e-mail addresses for spam purposes from the e-mailgids site. According to the judge NTS was guilty because they did not act according to the terms of usage that are on the e-mailgids site, but were bound to them, even though they did not specifically have to click an 'I agree'; the terms of use are clearly mentioned on the main index page, and that was enough for the judge. Unfortunately all links are in Dutch..."

8 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. There's nothing bad on e-mail harvestring by yeti+(dn) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't understand Dutch, but...

    Only certain usage of the harvested emails may be bad. I did what can be called e-mail harvesting too and yet I haven't sent a single spam and I'm not going to send any -- I did it for statistical purpose. I don't like being called criminal. Unfortunately this world became legalistic and have lost the sense of good and bad. Intention doesn't matter. Only what's written on some WWW page with an Accept button.

    BTW, no one gathers the e-mails manually. When I write an e-mail harvesting bot, it not only doesn't click on any Accept buttons, but have no intention of accepting some conditions at all. And I, its author, don't know what agreements the sites the bot finds may contain. I can only make it obey Internet protocols, robots.txt and so on.

    So, is Google illegal too, when it crawls the Web without obeying conditions written on some WWW page with an Accept button?

    --
    Life is the slowest way to death.
  2. What's good about this? by Tom7 · · Score: 3, Insightful


    I don't think there's anything good about this. What if the next they rule it's illegal to to download an entire site for off-line browsing, or to crawl a web site to create an index of it? What if you were harvesting e-mails for a scientific study? This kind of regulation of technology is negative, and I'm thankful it didn't happen in the US. I guess the primary issue in this case was a "breach of contract" rather than something fundamental about e-mail address harvesting, but it's scary to see that kind of enthusiasm in a slashdot headline. (Who else cares about on-line freedoms?)

    In this case I would have much rather seen e-mailgids just deploy technological solution to make it difficult for NTS to harvest e-mails. Seriously, as annoying as spam may be, it's not as annoying as losing my freedom on the internet. Be careful what you wish for!

  3. conditions by jo-do-cus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    for your information: all links are in dutch, but on the site of the e-mailgids you can find the conditions for use in english. I guess that the judge made his decision because it is very evident that the service provided by this site is not meant for harvesting & spam, and what is more, this it mentioned in the conditions. Furthermore, it reads above the search box "Door in de gids te zoeken stemt u in met de voorwaarden", which translates to something like "by searching our database you agree with the conditions of use". So i guess the judge has a point here...

  4. Without reading, hard to say by bwt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm always skeptical about 2nd hand interpretations of judicial decisions. At face value, this sounds bad, because it appears to find you are bound by the terms of a Clickwrap contract even if you don't explicitly agree to it.

    On the other hand, if this case basically held that abiding by robots.txt is mandatory for spiders, I think I would support that. If the judge held that the terms of use applies even if this site's robots.txt did not forbid crawling, then that is horrendous.

  5. There is NO good in this.... by duffbeer703 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So now if I am in Holland, by going to a website I am considered to have entered into a contract, which may or may not be readable to me?

    If this law applied to car dealers, we'd be bound in a contract to purchase an automobile the second we stepped on the lot.

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
    1. Re:There is NO good in this.... by Xner · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Because when you visit a site one might reasonally expect NOT to be forced into buying something just by visiting that site. That is simply rediculous, and the judge knows it. Disallowing harvesting email addresses and using them for non-personal purposes is ethically, morally and law-technically perfectly normal, and a judge here takes that into account.

      This is a very important point, and one that warrants extra attention.
      Dutch contract law (much as contract law anywhere else in the world) requires contracts to be entered willingly and in good faith. This is something that the Dutch courts don't just pay lip service to.

      In the case of the hypothetical car dealer, a client that was somehow directed to the page would most likely not have entered in the contract willingly. Proving mala fide would also be a rather easy job for the defense.

      As people often say, It's not just common sense: it's THE LAW!

      --
      Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
  6. you forget a few things here. by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When you download a site, you are making copies. When you make an unauthorized download, it is a copyright violation.

    When you place a website up, you give an implied permission to make copies. But, one must comply with terms of use. The robots.txt file which is both a standard and instructions saying what files can or cannot be downloaded via a bot.

    With a terms of use, you can argue that a user has agreed to this after reading the first page with the terms of use on it.

    Have you noticed the back of a movie ticket that says you can't videotape the movie when you go into the theatre?

    Of course an unreasonable terms of you will be laughed at in court.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
  7. Re:Dangerous Precedent by Martin+S. · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many of you would like to be bound to an EULA even if you didn't click an 'I agree'?

    This comment is miss-representative, it is not comparable; If this was not moderated as interesting I would have labled it a troll and moved on. However; somebody using an email harvester has deliberately and wilfully circumventing typical and widely known terms of service.

    This would be the same as somebody using an automated script to accept a EULA for them; or installing from an image rather than the official installer programme and thereby circumvented an 'I agree' click-through. Then ignoring the terms of the EULA and stating then never saw or accepted them; and therefore are not bound by them. That is a ludicrous suggestion.