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

ohhh ... EULA

[karearea]

Where does this leave things like EULAs?

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[rodgster]

EULAs?????

It would appear they aren't worth the electrons required to display them.

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[MamiyaOtaru]

More importantly, where does it leave warez sites that only let you in if you agree not to be a law enforcement officer?

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[Mistlefoot]

This both makes sense and doesn't.

"While the court did not explain just what sort of security measures would invoke the SCA, it did hint that a webmaster who "screens the registrants before granting access" would have a stronger claim than one who merely asks his registrants to "self screen"

Imagine having a bar with a sign out front saying "if you are under the legal age you cannot purchase alcohol here. By entering you are agreeing you are of legal age". You can't just sell alcohol to anyone entering because they agreed they were old enough.

You need to "screen of registrants" or patrons in this case.

At the same time the "underage" drinkers will be charged and deemed responsible for their actions (even though the bar may be charged or lose their license as well).

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[EonBlueTooL]

Doesn't a website owner give up space on their server and usage of their bandwidth?

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[mctk]

However, even more important is the fact that teenie-boppers can feel justified when they click those "Yes, I am 18" links!

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[paeanblack]

This changes absolutely nothing. This has nothing to do with contracts, but "public" vs "private." Basically, in order for something NOT to be considered "public" you must have meaningful screening.

In other words:
If you give unrestricted, unscreened access to 99.99999% of the public, you can't discriminate against the remaining 0.00001%.

It's a pretty sensible ruling. Anything that is "Open to the Public" has to play by different rules.

Re:ohhh ... EULA

[pclminion]

Had she actually drank the coffee rather than spilled it, she'd have had permanent scarring on her esophagus and tongue and probably would have lost the ability to speak.

Bullshit. You have multiple reflexes to prevent you from ingesting boiling or near-boiling materials. 180-degree coffee would hardly get past the lips, much less down the throat.

When you put your hand in a fire, do you CONSCIOUSLY pull it away or is it an automatic reflex? On the contrary, it requires severe conscious control to KEEP the hand near the heat even if you wanted to.

This is a blatant double standard

[Zork the Almighty]

It seems more and more like we have a double standard when it comes to "computer trespass" laws. People can be threatened with prosecution for downloading files which a company mistakenly posts on a public webserver, yet when it comes to a citizen and their own personal site they have no mechanism to keep people out.

Re:This is a blatant double standard

[DerekLyons]

It seems more and more like we have a double standard when it comes to "computer trespass" laws. People can be threatened with prosecution for downloading files which a company mistakenly posts on a public webserver, yet when it comes to a citizen and their own personal site they have no mechanism to keep people out.

Yes - they do. If you read the TFA, the Court's rejection of Snow's suit is based on the fact that he took no effective measures to keep people out. It did not say in any form or fashion that you could not erect such effective barriers as you desire - only that 'self screening' (having a user click the 'I agree' button) does not constitute an effective barrier. This makes sense on the face of it, because there is no screening or locking mechanisms - the forums in question are freely available to any random member of the public, hence they are (legally) not effectively different from the front page of Slashdot.

Re:This is a blatant double standard

[hyfe]

From linked blog:
In order to access Snow's site, a user was required to register a username and password, and to agree to a statement affirming that the user was not associated with DirecTV, inc

So, in order to access the site, you had to register. If asking the user is not considered 'no effective meaure' what the hell is? Does this mean we can all ignore EULA's too, since the companies are taking 'no effective measures' besides an 'I agree' button? I mean, seriously, this sort of logic will certainly make a lot of things easier to handle:
'Yes, I know I signed the contract with a false name, but what measures did the other party really take to keep me honest? If they're relying on me not lying, it's clearly their own fault they got burnt.'
"Your honour, I know the defendant asked me to stop punching him, but he didn't take any effective counter-measures so I figured it was really alright to continue "

Exactly the same as before...

[Nick Driver]

Where does this leave things like EULAs?
 
... that is, if you are a big powerful rich corp, then the courts will happily uphold your EULA but if you are a small-time nobody, then your EULA doesn't mean jack squat and the courts will trod all over it. Nothing has changed.

And no, I'm not intentionally being cynical... I'm just simply being observant of the way things really work.

Trespassing

[Jordan Catalano]

I know you can't extrapolate from online laws to real-world ones, but...

On Snow's site, any member of the general public could access the site by merely registering with a username and password and clicking on the words "I Agree to these terms." Such an easily surmountable barrier to access is, according to the court, insufficient to make a site not "readily acessible to the general public."

If I own some land, and don't want people trespassing to pick berries but have no problem with them hiking across it, I can put up signs to that effect. If they come to pick berries, I can kick them out for trespassing. Were online standards applied to this law, even putting up a short fence wouldn't be sufficient to allow me to enforce my signs; I'd need 15-foot concrete barriers and hired guides to chaperone all visitors.

Re:Trespassing

[EvilNTUser]

Actually, in several countries you couldn't even do that. In Finland, wherever you erect a house is considered completely private property, but if you own forest beyond your back yard, you can't prevent people from using it.

They can't, of course, start cutting down trees or breaking things, but you're not allowed to prevent them from doing reasonable things such as traversing it or picking berries/mushrooms.

This makes perfect sense, as the only other alternative would be for the government to own all forests, to prevent crazy landowners from destroying everyone else's enjoyment. Imagine if you had to pick berries with a GPS locator and a map of all local land borders.

In practice, it means you can't start posting stupid signs telling people what they're allowed to do. Just like that website couldn't...

It's not a double standard.

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a double standard by any means. It's what many call the "American standard".

This man's first offense was not being a corporation. His second was daring to question the actions of corporations.

The standards are quite clearly set. Individuals are not allowed to take a stance against corporations or their actions. Corporate greed trumps all. It's very evident how the system works.

Re:It's not a double standard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. If you doubt what the parent says, or think he's just being cynical, try distributing the Sony rootkit yourself and see what happens to you.

dismissed with cause

[coaxial]

The SCA isn't applicable here. He should have brought a civil suit citing breach of contract. That's just standard licensing/contract law.

No mention of contract

[MulluskO]

The ruling makes no mention of EULAs or contracts. I think this would have been a far more interesting case had Snow argued that viewing the website was a breach of contract rather than attempt to apply some anti-hacking law someplace that it doesn't belong.

Re:Discrimination

[Lord Kano]

Could I create a website that says no "blacks" can enter? NO! Could I be sued if I did? YES!

Yes you could create such a website in the US and on what grounds could anyone sue you?

Private citizend engaging in discrimination is perfectly legal. Being an asshole is not a crime.

He should not be able to create a website saying no Direct TV personel and they have every right to counter-sue in my opinion.

I would respectfully submit that you have no fucking clue of what you're talking about. Under what law could they counter-sue?

LK

No. That's not how the system works.

[trezor]

This was a private person working against corporations, and it was shot down. When the corporations with their army of lawyers and legal fud wants to persuit this against people, expect it to be fully enforcable. They will have no problems what so ever.

Ok, so I don't know that, but I'm pretty sure that's how it will turn out.

Re:No. That's not how the system works.

[walt-sjc]

It comes down to money. The private individual in most cases (I would bet at least 99.99%) does not have enough money to properly defend himself against the corporation (or mount an attack for that matter, as we saw in this case.) Your home-town lawyer is NOTHING against the billion dollar law firms large corps. use (not to mention their in-house legal staff.)

We probably need laws that allow for X times damages and expenses when an individual or company has X times the financial / legal resources of the opponent and loses. It would encourage much more pro-bono activity and more corporate responsibility. Not even 100% of the "extra" penalty needs to go to the winner - some could be used to offset the court costs / infrastructure that we taxpayers pay for.