Should You Break TOS Because Work Asks You?

An anonymous reader writes "My boss recently assigned me a project that was all his idea, with two basic flaws that would require me to break multiple web sites' Terms of Service (TOS). Part requires scraping most of the site, parsing the data and presenting it as our own without human intervention. While we're safe on copyright issues, clearly scraping like this is normally not allowed. At times it might also put a load on those sites. The other is, for lack of better words, a 'load balancing' part that requires using multiple free accounts instead of purchasing space and CPU time for less than $2,000 USD per month. The boss sees it as 'distributed' computing when in reality it's 'parasitic.' My question is: am I wrong about the ethics? If I do need to walk, how best can I handle it without damaging my reputation and future employment opportunities?"

Comments

Just ask yourself this:

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the contractors on the Death Star deserve to die?

Re:Just ask yourself this:

[Intron]

"Did the contractors on the Death Star deserve to die?"

Depends on whether it was the ones that did the weapons array or the ones that did the low-flush toilets. Oh wait, Halliburton did both.

Re:Just ask yourself this:

[Quince alPillan]

Because there have been a couple people who don't understand the reference from Clerks...

Randal: So they build another Death Star, right?
Dante: Yeah.
Randal: Now the first one they built was completed and fully operational before the Rebels destroyed it.
Dante: Luke blew it up. Give credit where it's due.
Randal: And the second one was still being built when they blew it up.
Dante: Compliments of Lando Calrissian.
Randal: Something just never sat right with me the second time they destroyed it. I could never put my finger on it-something just wasn't right.
Dante: And you figured it out?
Randal: Well, the thing is, the first Death Star was manned by the Imperial army-storm troopers, dignitaries- the only people onboard were Imperials.
Dante: Basically.
Randal: So when they blew it up, no prob. Evil is punished.
Dante: And the second time around...?
Randal: The second time around, it wasn't even finished yet. They were still under construction.
Dante: So?
Randal: A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.
Dante: Not just Imperials, is what you're getting at.
Randal: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.
Dante: All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you uneasy with its destruction?
Randal: All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed- casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. (notices Dante's confusion) All right, look-you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia-this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.

(The Blue-Collar Man (Thomas Burke) joins them.)

Blue-Collar Man: Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt, but what were you talking about?
Randal: The ending of Return of the Jedi.
Dante: My friend is trying to convince me that any contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when the space station was destroyed by the rebels.
Blue-Collar Man: Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... (digs into pocket and produces business card) Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.
Randal: Like when?
Blue-Collar Man: Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.
Dante: Whose house was it?
Blue-Collar Man: Dominick Bambino's.
Randal: "Babyface" Bambino? The gangster?
Blue-Collar Man: The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.
Dante: Based on personal politics.
Blue-Collar Man: Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface's house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn't even finished shingling.
Randal: No way!
Blue-Collar Man: (paying for coffee) I'm alive because I knew there were risks involved taking on that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. (pauses to reflect) You know, any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this... (taps his heart) not his wallet.

Re:Just ask yourself this:

[Rennt]

Haven't you seen "Clerks"

Dante: My friend is trying to convince me that any contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when the space station was destroyed by the rebels.
Blue-Collar Man: Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... (digs into pocket and produces business card) Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.
Randal: Like when?
Blue-Collar Man: Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.
Dante: Whose house was it?
Blue-Collar Man: Dominick Bambino's.
Randal: "Babyface" Bambino? The gangster?
Blue-Collar Man: The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.
Dante: Based on personal politics.
Blue-Collar Man: Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface's house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn't even finished shingling.
Randal: No way!
Blue-Collar Man: (paying for coffee) I'm alive because I knew there were risks involved taking on that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. (pauses to reflect) You know, any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this... (taps his heart) not his wallet.

Kevin Smith knows his stuff.

Re:Anything on the web is available for access

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Babies really shouldn't be given candy in the first place.

Hey, anonymous! This is your boss.

[jollyreaper]

I told you to scrape Slashdot, not read it. Now get back to work!

Re:Hilarity ensues when...

[Sockatume]

Workaround: write a program which generates random data using a small amount of harvested data as a guideline. If the boss is too lazy to generate the data he's meant to be generating, then he's probably going to be too lazy to check that the data you're "harvesting" is actually accurate.

Re:Anything on the web is available for access

[megamerican]

Babies really shouldn't be given candy in the first place.

Then taking candy from a baby IS the ethical thing to do!

Re:If you want legal advice...

[dintech]

No, no, no. If you want legal advice, ask Slashdot! Given enough time, you'll get an answer that is exactly what you hoped for and you can ignore or mod down the ones you don't like. It couldn't be simpler and it's a whole lot cheaper!

Re:Anything on the web is available for access

[MightyYar]

Mmmmmmm... ass burgers.

Re:It's your job...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you scraped that!

Re:You're Right, Of Course

[alta]

I'm for giving them entirely bogus data that would cause them to loose customers. Not sure exactly what kind of site's we're talking about, but if a customer goes looking for chicken soup recipes and ends up getting porn... I think your boss will realize that they're on to you and won't suggest stealing from them any longer.

Re:Redirecting content

[Mr. Droopy Drawers]

Reminds me of a time when an Ebay'er was pointing to images on my website for an automotive auction. Didn't ask us or give us credit for the images. So, his example of "recently restored examples" became a photo of a '63 Imperial being loaded into a crusher.

How's that for Crushing the Competition?!

Re:You're Right, Of Course

[Chapter80]

The proper way to document this in email is something like this:

Boss-
I'm able to do the data scraping and should have it up and running by the end of the day.
- Your faithful employee

In case you are wondering about the technical details, here they are:

The scraping is implemented with a perl script which is activated using cron.

We scrape the site twenty times per minute, which is a violation of their terms of service. By doing this, of course, we risk that they may shut us off at any time, or even provide us with fake data.

The typical PHB will read the first two lines on his blackberry, and you're golden. Worst case he or she will scroll down - but the managerial brain is set to shut down at the word "perl". The word "cron" is a failsafe - in case the PHB also has ADD.

Later when s/he comes back and says "why didn't you warn me", you can point to the text "beneath the fold" of your email.

Re:Redirecting content

[Free the Cowards]

Somebody once pointed at a picture of a frosted birthday cake on my web site from a forum. So I grabbed my image editor and built a special edition of the cake just for him, where the frosting read "Don't link to my images!"

I also have a specially crafted JPEG which is under 1000 bytes but which produces a 20,000x20,000 pixel image filled with black. It will totally screw up the layout of any page linking to it if they haven't entered an explicit size for the tag.

Re:You're Right, Of Course

[level4]

Did I say I didn't approve?

I am definitely in the "bastards who find actual physical pleasure in fucking with my enemies" camp ; )

Re:You're Right, Of Course

[Lumpy]

(4) you mention the next morning "what the hell happened to your car? did you run off the road? the side is all scraped up."

(5) days later, loosen the cores of all the tires scrader valves, replace the caps loosely as well.

(6) subscribe the PHB's email address to every porn site you can find.

(7) put ad in local alternative magazine for boss looking for homosexual urban tantric partners, give the main switchboard and home numbers.

PHB's are very easy to deal with.

Re:Redirecting content

[cynical kane]

Can you post the URL?

Re:You're Right, Of Course

[Anonymous Coward]

ooOOOOOooo.... loose customers... sounds kinky!

Little Bobby

[Dogtanian]

I told you to scrape Slashdot, not read it. Now get back to work!

I've only one thing to say to Anonymous Slashdot Scraper... '); DROP TABLE rippedoffcomments; -- Goodbye!