Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Goes After Greasemonkey Script Developer
palmerj3 writes "The popular Facebook Purity greasemonkey script (now renamed Fluff Buster Purity) has been used by thousands to rid their Facebook feeds from the likes of Mafia Wars, Farmville, and other annoying things. Now, Facebook is threatening the developer of this script. Does Facebook have the right to govern their website's design and functionality once it's in the browser?"
No. They don't...
If they just stick a clause in the EULA the prohibits people from doing just that, they could stop it. Although I am not sure if they could go after the author, just those who use it. How they would detect that, I'm not sure, but I know there are a few sites that can detect AdBlock.
Sorry, you distributed content, we can throw it in the trash if we like
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
here comes the Streisand effect
Someday we'll hit the human carrying capacity. And the band will just play on.
What? This is bogus. Users that don't like that crap should be able to simply filter it out, they just don't know how so they just download some scripts and voila!
You can hide all news feed posts from a certain application without using any addons. I don't see why they would be against this. I half-expected the "going after" him in the headline was to offer him a job before reading the summary.
Once it's in your browser, it's just a bunch of well formed data. These days almost any browser has extensions that may inadvertently modify this data, even without getting into specific tools like Greasemonkey.
If they really feel that strongly about a topic, they could try to obfuscate the data somehow, to make it more difficult to write such an extension. This would not be too hard on their part, though obviously more computationally expensive.
Of course they don't, but it doesn't matter because the developer can't possibly afford to defend himself so he'll comply because it doesn't matter if you're right if you're homeless. I wish judges were a little more liberal with SLAPP summary judgments against litigious corporations.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I'm going to install it now.
Thanks for bringing this to script to my attention, Facebook!
I don't see how this is any different than running noscript, or redirecting entries in your host file to 127.0.0.1... Even if this does go to court, I doubt Facebook would come out on top. Explaining to someone how browser content can be modified on the fly using GreaseMonkey might be a little tricky. No harm, no foul. Good luck Facebook, you money-hoarding bastards.
You don't let me export my data directly. You play games threatening to disable my account if I try to export the data by using a 3rd party script. Your employees are able to access my private information easily. I just hate logging into your website these days.
I'm going to delete my Facebook account. I can hear how my friends are doing by calling them once in a while.
Banu
Now I know how to get rid of all that shit (short of culling my noob friends).
Thank you, Streisand effect!
Facebook has a new feature to hide output from applications. You can still see friends posts, but don't see the output of Farmville, Mafia Wars, or other "noisy" applications.
Keep Doing Good.
Had GS installed, but hadn't seen this script.
Thanks EffBee for letting me know about the script that keeps all your spam harvesting shit-ware out of sight.
solving this problem is easy: make them options. all you need to do is call it FB Mod Script or something and then put in options for how you want to manipulate the page. not that difficult to figure out.
even the mention of this story will upset their pr in dev community A LOT. we web developers, contrary to some who are developing for more closed platforms like ipod, do NOT like being herded, goaded, or ordered about. this will have consequences.
Read radical news here
Can I not telnet to facebook.com on port 80 and make a request by hand? Sorry, but their copyright ends after they distribute a URI over HTTP. What I do with the response is my prerogative. My browser does anything it wants to with your data... even if I'm not using a browser to connect to tcp/80 at the time.
Yeah, an article in /. nothing more. Face it, on one caring developer come how many sheep who do not care at all?
I would think they would go after ABP before this...
Streisand Effect FOR THE WIN!
Seriously, she should start offering training courses.
/. is not the only one running this article, and this platform wont be the only place this news is heard. i would really refrain from calling web development community 'sheep'. for their actions up to this point has been far from anything sheeple.
Read radical news here
I have a Facebook account that I signed up with bogus information to check something out once, but I don't remember which email I used to sign up or my password. However, I do happen to have a brother in college who extensively uses Facebook to connect to his campus' "scene." He is not one of those [mean adjective] people who plays stupid Facebook games and spams everyone with them. I think he'll enjoy knowing about this, and I know many of his college friends despise the annoying Facebook games. So, as a result of their attack on this developer who is breaking no laws, I am reading this /. post and my word of this wondrous script will be heard directly, and indirectly, but many Facebook users. Congratulations Facebook, you just shot yourself in the foot to spite your face (that's how it goes right?).
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
Thank god for it. Jesus, do people not know about that?
The end user should always have as much control as possible. Facebook taking control away is lame.
Everyone who complains about Facebook needs to shut up. It is just another way communicating. in many cases, passively, and people like being lazy. Care about my day? Look me up, bitch.
It is empowerment, if you look at it the right way. Do people use it this idealistically?
I wish : /
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
having lite set as default, and having the switcher link for those times when the feature is not yet ready in lite, helps greatly.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Let us have this discussion in facebook.. why waste slashdot resource for this ;-)
Allow me to answer this with a complex, well-thought out, rational and legalistic response: No.
They should also go after makers of duck tape while they are at it. amazing how many ads a little piece of tape blocks!
...every other country than the US, they will accomplish what, exactly?
Any attempts to enforce EULAs would be laughed out of court in the rest of the world. Consumer rights authorities in the EU are currently investigating whether it even is legal to present EULAs to consumers since there's currently a court case pending in Finland where someone was blocked from using a free service because they had filled out bogus info about themselves and the EULA "obliged" users to disclose real info.
Ps. It would be nice if someone (a Finn?) has more info about that case, I can't come up with search terms that don't result in too many irrelevant hits and I just cannot remember the foreign names well enough.
The link in the Slashdot article links to a blog which links to a Facebook page which links to an ad-heavy web site and a Twitter log. Nowhere is the actual "legal threat" defined.
If the legal threat is real, post it to Chilling Effects.
Click "Hide"
Click "Hide "
There. Done.
The only time I get game spam is when a friend finds a new game. Otherwise, I don't see any of it - Mafia Wars, Vampire Wars, Farmville - all *gasp* hidden.
Holy crap there's a facebook purity greasemonkey script? Thanks for letting me know about it, Facebook. I'm off to install it now!
or else!
I noticed when one of my friends keept bothering me with Zombiefarm that if you click hide on the person, the option to hide the application or the user is available.
.. to never ever using Facebook. Hurray! :-)
Insert
On your computer, running an 'app'/'script' on your browser on your computer with your bandwidth. ;).
Its all local.
All I can suggest is a firefox web2.0 edition.
To the web presents a perfect clean firefox with all all options running, to you the user its script ready and never shall the two layers meet
As for facebook, we the net using population cannot help your profit dreams.
Unless you build a wall with a password and pay per play entry- your 'experience' is open for all on any browser.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I just never bothered signing up for a Facebook account. I'm 30-something. From talking to friends and co-workers that have FB, its either to stay in contact with the BFF (best-friend-forever), because you run a business (or the company you work for) that requires a lot of public exposure to generate money and a reputation, or everyone just asks you do it.
Even though I'd have quite a few people in my profile, the only advantage would be that I could easily reach people outside of where I live. But there's not a lot of people in that category that I know well enough. There's just way way way too much info that goes into these profiles its too dangerous. It just takes one person who knows someone who knows someone who knows *YOU* to spoil everything. I've heard there's still the option of 'private invite only', but someone will have to convince me why this might be a good idea.
IMO, the whole thing just feels like all the GFs I've had that want to "talk on the phone" with me or any other guys their dating for 2 hours asking "what are you doing?" - this just seems like a "What are you doing?" for everybody you know and don't know + your GF.
so he is greedy. what do you expect?
Does this script give you anything that lite.facebook.com doesn't already?
Instead of threatening the dude for writing the Greasemonkey script, they should maybe be thinking about why people want to use this script in the first place. If a major portion of your website users find part of your site to be that effing annoying, then fixing that portion of your website to be less annoying is a more important issue than the existence of a Greasemonkey script. Facebook needs to go shopping at the Clue Factory Outlet.
I also agree with others in this thread who have pointed out the Streisand Effect. I never heard of the script, but you can bet your donkey that I'll be installing it as soon as I get done typing this reply. I like Facebook and all, but a lot of that crap has to go.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Facebook has inbuilt "ignore this"-feature. Every post has an X on the top-right corner, click it, and you can choose do you want to ignore application or the user who spams your newsfeed (in case you don't want to lose him/her from your friendlist). I did this months ago, and since then I've forgotten that Mafia Wars even exist.
Chronologically late.
once a website is on client's browser, the owner cannot govern any rule. we shld not forget: Web is open, and it's this nature has made it popular.
FSF could take over his legal cost. And then facebook is fucked, because the publicity combined with the probability that FSF would not drop the issue, would force them to accept and put them in a bad light. The question is could in such a case the FSF try to get the judge facebook to pay for their lawyer cost if facebook lose, which they would do.
and it's VERY handy...
PS. Does slashdot want to put an Opera icon on the top, as clearly Greasemonkey/UserJS is not just for Firefox, it originated in Opera long before there was a Firefox extension.
Seriously, the script's impact probably just ten-folded (at least) due to them making a fuss about it.
Keep using that brain of yours, Facebook!
Ditto. Added with thanks.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Wrong organization though, this sounds more like a case for the EFF. http://www.eff.org/
Facebook makes it easy to block applications - when a Farmville/Mafia wars post appears in your intray you just say "block this application" and you'll never see it again.
No sig today...
for informing me of such a wondrous thing!
Visit my Forums?
I see no details in the article. Looking at the developer's site, it seems their actions are:
- Shutting down the facebook profile associated with the script. This is poor behaviour, but entirely within their rights: it's their web site, if they don't want to support stuff like this it is their choice to do so.
- Threaten to take legal action to seize control of a domain called "facebookplus.org", which the author claims is entirely unrelated to him.
So, what's the big fuss about? The former is annoying, but hardly "threatening to close him down"; the second appears to be a case of mistaken identity which will go away if he ignores it. Or is there some other threat I haven't seen?
we web developers, contrary to some who are developing for more closed platforms like ipod, do NOT like being herded, goaded, or ordered about. this will have consequences.
That's deeply ironic if you develop applications for the walled garden that is the Facebook Platform.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
On the other hand Facebook support isn't doing shit when you try to contact them. I tried to write email to them several times. You don't even get an answer. I heard by other people that you have to pester them constantly to get any reaction at all. If that's how this company works, then I rather stay away from the page - it's not like it is any innovative anymore.
Lots of people here are totally missing the point.
Facebook isn't trying to stop people from writing scripts that modify the content of the page (get rid of spam), and if it were to go to court, this would not be the subject of the court case. The actual complaint is a trademark violation one for using the term "Facebook", and later, "FB". It also seems their lawyers are unable to do a whois search because they are also demanding he turns over a domain to them that he doesn't actually own.
However, the "cease and desist" (from the scant information that's actually avaialble if you go to the author's web page) is solely about trademark issues. Nothing about what the script actually does. This may or may not be heavy handed, I don't know - but what I can tell is that it has nothing at all to do with what the script does, merely what it was called.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Minor misunderstanding. I did not mean the web development community in particular, but the facebook users. A dozen disgruntled developers compared to thousands user who do not care at all. Where do you think the money lies? Facebook is far too big now that it needs to care what the developer community thinks. It is even big enough that it does not need to care what a good deal of their customers think.
Join the Facebook page for Fluff Busting Purity (the script), that will show them:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/fluffbustingpurity?ref=mf
I really dont get why people keep whining about farmville and other app updates. You can easily disable notifications from specific app when you click 'hide' next to the notification. Then you can either hide notifications from that person or from that specific app.
Also I notice that the longer people are on facebook the less STUPID tests they take, such as 'which transformer suits you best' and junk like that...
btw, I also use Facebook Fixer, I just love the preview of photo's when you hover them!
Facebook users are such a giant crowd of losers. They could be doing much more worthy things, like playing World of Warcraft. :)
this is MY computer, i own the goddamn thing, and i can install any software i want and that includes things like greasemonkey facebook purdy if i chose to do so, after all the sleazy advertising crap that went on a few years back i was really grateful for tools like Adblock Plus & NoScript, i don't use social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace & Twitter, if i want to contact my friends i do it via two-way radio or a telephone if i have something more confidential to talk about.
some of my friends have never owned a computer, computers can be troublesome and annoying so i really dont blame them.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Never heard of this until now. *Definitely* looking into it.
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
If the greasemonkey script is illegal, wouldn't popup blockers also be a no-no under the same line of thinking?
... but FB Purity isn't. Someone has some fucked up priorities.
I'd never had known about this script if Facebook had left well enough alone. I'm installing the script now, and encourage everyone else to do the same. I do know how to block FB apps, but am still annoyed by the occasional status update or event invite that includes stuff I don't wanna see. Yippee Skippee! (Don't you just love the Streisand Effect?)
This is typical of spoiled morons, you know, the kids who got angry because you wouldn't play the game their way and ran crying to get the teacher or their parents. The reality is that desire for something better with the freedom to communicate creates competition and constant improvement. The stagnation that organizations like microcrap and facebook try to shove their idea of how to live down everyone's throat the way the church did during the dark ages always results in disaster.If courts side with stagnation and censorship again it just means we are following the same road to failure that Rome took two thousand years ago. When Julius Caesar tried changing things back and it got him stabbed to death on the floor of the Roman Senate. Once this cultural momentum starts, it takes the fall of the entire culture to end it.
When I signed up for these games, facebook informed me that they couldn't post things to your wall anymore. They required your email if you wanted to send you updates. I obliged, knowing they would go into a special filter in my Gmail inbox.
That's exactly what Myspace thought. Wait, who now?
I don't get why they care if THEY themselves offer so many ways to avoid all that crap.
I think your upper-case letters there pretty much answer the question. It's all about control. Facebook has become in fact what AOL and Prodigy and Delphi all imagined they'd be: the walled garden where their users stayed most of the time, only venturing from the home base out into the wide Internet to bring stuff back "home".
The "lite" offering is good from Facebook's point of view because it keeps in users who might stray otherwise. But a third-party script which messes around inside the garden without their consent or control -- that's a problem.
I sincerely hope that Facebook does not prevail here. If they do, then the next thing that we'll have to deal with is condom manufacturers getting into trouble due to blocking syphilis. We really don't need that. I hope Facebook's legal department thinks about this and reconsiders.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Maybe its time we start pushing distributed social networking.
Think "HelloWorld" from years ago, but more modern. HelloWorld was great, just ahead of its time.
http://www.cooperatingsystems.com/index.htm
They have every right to stop a user from accessing their site, if they detect its use somehow. But a "EUL" doesn't give them the right to "go after" them. If they think it does, then my EULA says they agree to pay me a billion dollars should they do that.
It will be much harder if you realize that the ads are not served by the content creators, but by thirth party servers (like google and yahoo).
You can fix that, but don't forget that advertisers do some real strange Stuff you really do not want to integegrate that in your reputable website.
As long as adblockers stay under a certain threshold you do not want to spend the time to block them, you need enhoug time filtering out the ads that get really annoying (popovers YOUR content, sounds, high cpu usage flash content, NSFW stuff).
facebook could fight content filters, but might loose that technological battle.
and hey, Fluff Busting Purity only got a letter, i don't see anything beyond that at this moment.
And any phrase that includes those letters is infringing?
FB is just embarassed we will discover their real name is FuBar.
Reply to That ||
Same here. Already using greasemonkey for craigslist and stumbleupon. It actually makes sites useful, and usable!
I didn't know about this script, because of Facebook actions, I do now. So... Thanks Facebook for shooting yourself in the foot!
I would have called it Deface Book if I were creating such a script. But then, I suppose Deutsche Bahn would claim I was violating their DB trademark. Sigh.
If he wanted an action to be only done by a human, he should have added a captcha to the interface. ReCaptcha is always great.
If he missed that opportunity, then the only thing he can do, is STFU. Big time.
Seems he did never in his whole life actually use a computer. You know. For its purpose: To automate things!
Playing with colorful clickables does not make you a computer user. It only makes you an appliance user. That that appliance is software that runs on a computer, is irrelevant. Especially since every phone, washing machine, car, etc, has a small computer running on the inside nowadays.
That’s why people should not be allowed to make decisions that affect other people’s lives, when they got zero competency on the subject.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
now, i'm not a facebook fan per se. It's a tool, blah, blah.
i'm on greasemonkeys side, but isn't there some kinda law that says if you don't defend or at least persue protecting your trademark you lose it?
I wonder what they think of motoblur which shows all my facebook contacts and just their status and not all that other crap.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
First, the cat's out of the bag. Somebody else will just come up with a similar script. Second, the aforementioned silly items already make FB worthless for me.
I never got attached enough to FB to care about installing a script. I went back to the simplicity of Twitter for that kind of thing, and check my FB once every few weeks just to see if anything is really different. Every time I do that, I see page after page of people's horoscopes from yesterday. I sigh and close the window.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Copyright law grants exclusive rights to:
Doing any one of those without permission is copyright infringement, unless fair use allows it. It probably does in this case, but I think that has more to do with the fact that Facebook are distributing the content in a format (HTML/CSS) that was specifically designed to allow different user agents to display information differently.
Too bad you 'web developers' don't understand that it has one particular 'web developer' (Facebook) acting like a douche bag to web users.
Greasemonkey is a client side extension that allows a user to script the browser to do neat modifications of web pages that douche bags such as yourself (and facebook) create that piss us users off.
Its an extension that lets us users tell you to take your freedom as a web developer and shove it up your ass because our freedom is more important than whatever retarded thing you're trying to cram down our throats today, regardless of how 'cool' you think the blink tag is, or how 'awesome' the ads you throw at us are, or how 'modern' the retarded noisy CPU hogging flash game is. Greasemonkey lets us give you the finger. You might want to know which group you belong too before you try to jump on the bandwagon.
I have a sneaking suspecion however that you're definition of being a web developer means you've clicked the view source menu item by the sound of your post and lack of understanding which group you fall into in this case. Next time instead of trying to be all angsty and get your OMG IPOD CLOSED, XBOX SO BIG, EVIL IF NOT GPL!@#!@$!@$ ignorance all out at once, perhaps you should slow down a little, get a clue, and try to form a coherent thought before showing everyone what they acted like when they were 16.
Finally ...
Facebook 'dev community' ... seriously ... did you really just say that?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I don't think they should care about this, as the user should be allowed to delete info on their accounts associated through third party softwares if all in all they wish to
a lot of bullshit.
first, get your shit in order and make sure whom you are angry against first.
second, all the shit you are using on the net, rangin from any random forum to this very site you are on, are a product of web developers.
third, there is no separate 'developer' circle for facebook. it is generic web development as in phpbb, joomla, nuke development, so, the developers doing anything for facebook are a subset of the web developers, and some contributors to projects like above.
fourth, get your shit in order. you have serious identification and anger issues, not to mention not knowing who to thank for all this explosive development of user to user interaction of internet.
Read radical news here
When the Greasemonkey script comes out that blocks everything on FB but chat and messages, I'm there.
Let everyone know why you use it, and post it. Have your account re-created under a slightly different name, and export your friends list just incase they deactivate your account.
It's better when you own your domain, cause then you can have infinate emails from which to start accounts..facebook@ yourdomain.com, facebook2@yourdomain.com, facebook2andahalf@yourdomain.com (etc.)
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Well facebook have gone after http://www.suicidemachine.com/ which is quite funny. I must say, I am rather disappointed with slashdot being on facebook. Since when did /. need facebook? I say commit social networking suicide =) But that could be the point of /. building up a massive user database and following. Then /. commits suicide.... and facebook cry! hell I will even sign up with a fake account if that is the master plan!
All cows eat grass!
Nop!
Kill Grease monkey and New Monkey will be born
It is Facebooks property for their own webpage, whether or not we want applications posting feeds automatically is completely our choice so they can get screwed