Site Says 'Go Away!'; Federal Court Says No

CaptainEbo writes "Michael Snow was the webmaster of Stop Corporate Extortion, a private support group website for 'individuals who have been, are being, or will be sued by any Corporate entity.' In order to access his site, users were required to register a username and password, and agree to a statement saying they were not associated with DirecTV, Inc. Several defendants in suits brought by DirecTV would discuss their cases on Snow's site. When DirecTV's employees and lawyers ignored Snow's user agreement and accessed his site anyway, Snow sued, claiming they violated the Stored Communications Act (SCA) by accessing his site without authorization. In an unanimous opinion, the Eleventh Circuit rejected Snow's suit."

Comments

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[CaptainEbo]

Karearea~ A commenter on the linked to site left this remark about EULAs, which I believe is a correct statement of the law:

EULAs and the like are governed by contract law, which is a completely different ballgame than the SCA. Under contract law, an agreement is valid if one party offers something to another, the offer is accepted, and both parties agree to give something up. In the context of a EULA, the text of the EULA is the offer, clicking on "I Agree" is the acceptance. That means that so long as the last requirement (both parties give something up) is met, that click-through agreements are valid for EULA purposes.

In short, this case only dealt with the meaning of a particular statute (the SCA). EULAs rely on contract law, which are a totally different area of the law. This decision should not effect EULAs.

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[Kamineko]

It leaves them exactly where they were: Here.

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[Maxmin]

Reread the parent post - they sued under the SCA, not contract law. Any precedent and case law applies only to the provisions of law invoked by the plaintiff.

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[CaptainEbo]

The SCA is a federal statute, passed by Congress & signed by the President. It applies only when the conditions specifically described in the statute are met. In this case, those conditions are access of stored communications "without authorization". The text of the statute also contains an exception, which says that even if stored communications were accessed w/o authorization, the statute does not apply if those communications are "readily acessible to the general public." According to the Eleventh Circuit, merely requiring the user to click a button saying they agree that they are not something does not prevent a site from being "readily accessible to the general public." Contract law is hundreds of years old, based on the English common law, and modified somewhat by state legislatures. Under the common law of contracts, there are three elements to a contract: 1) An offer 2) An acceptance 3) Consideration (meaning that both parties agree to give something up) Because contract law is governed by state law, it is rarely raised in federal courts, such as the Eleventh Circuit (there are exceptions, under something called "diversity jurisdiction" or "supplimental jurisdiction" but I imagine the readers of Slashdot don't want me to give them an entire semester's worth of Civil Procedure). When a contract claim is raised in the proper court, however, a contract will generally be deemed to exist if the three elements mentioned above exist.

Re:This is a blatant double standard

[Vengie]

...the problem is Snow sued under the SCA rather than traditional contract theory. Of course, they violated their "contract" -- so the court would award him WHAT at best? An injunction? Because he couldn't have set up an IP blacklist to get that already? Seriously, the difference here is between contract law and a form of "public access" (public accomodations) law. If you are a private club with no serious barriers to entry, you cannot claim to be a private club, Clover Hill Swimming Club v Goldsboro, 219 A2d 161 (1966).