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Facebook Crawler Speaks Back
Last week we ran a story about Facebook suing to get a crawled dataset offline. This week we have a bit of a
response written by Pete Warden, the guy who actually did the crawling. He followed robots.txt, and then Facebook's lawyers went after him. It's actually a quite interesting little tale and worth your time.
Disregard this, he settled.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
From the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Section 3 "Safety":
2. You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission.
The question then becomes how enforceable is the agreement? Sure, if he has an account Facebook can close it, but if he is just accessing Facebook without an account do they have a case? Last I saw you can browse parts of profiles without being logged in, and without ever agreeing to any terms.
I hope you're being sarcastic. If not, I have some bad news for you.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'd also like to point out in their terms:
Actually, they can. They weren't even forbidden to do so before McCain-Feingold was largely overturned. They were merely limited in the amounts they could contribute.
Now, of course, they can contribute freely to any campaigns....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
> *redistributing their data*
No one owns data. Data is not protected by copyright in the US.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Fictional or not, in the context it is a name. Names are usually capitalized, whether it is God or Bugs Bunny.
Or you could support Lawrence Lessig's Fix Congress First initiative which proposes to do just that.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
imagine - you put a robots.txt in your root directory, allow crawlers to crawl everything, and then sue those who crawled your stuff.
facebook is not even an established, long standing part of the big capital elite, they are startups, who are from the new generations and from the new tech age.
but see, when they became big capital, they are similarly trying to stomp down others by their copy'right' and big money, despite they come out from our own lot in the recent decade.
this shows, regardless of generation, or culture, having copyrights and big capital eventually cause intellectual feudalism favoring the rich elite, EVEN if they are in the wrong.
Read radical news here
Now, of course, they can contribute freely to any campaigns....
-1, factually incorrect. They can use corporate money to pay for advertisements advancing their agenda. They can not give corporate money directly to a political campaign.
Examples: The SEIU can run an advertisement saying that John McCain kicks puppies. The NRA can run an advertisement saying that Barack Obama kicks puppies. What neither of them can do is give money directly to Obama for America or McCain/Palin 08.
Stop repeating the misconceptions/lazy reporting of the mass media and learn what the law actually says.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Actually, I believe all of this data was publicly accessable, even without an account. This is part of the updated privacy controls (which set most everything to public by default if someone never adjusted their privacy). Thus it seems a ToS would never have applied, though FB obviously wants it to.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
This doesn't deny corporations from running ads, they just have to do it on their own, and out in the open
Why out in the open? The Supreme Court has held for a very long time now that the right to free speech means the right to anonymous speech, especially political speech. Having explicitly granted corporations the right to free speech means that they no longer can be required to identify themselves, especially with regards to political speech.
AND that is why it won't ever be implemented.
That was what the recent infamous ruling had been about: organizations running ads on their own (corporate) dime.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The Supreme Court has held for a very long time now that the right to free speech means the right to anonymous speech, especially political speech.
Yes.. for people. But not necessarily for organizations.
Of course, making such a distinction will require reversing a very old (and recently reinforced) precedent in US law, where organizations have personhood. Probably requiring an amendment. So it won't happen.
Yep. That's good because in such a system, you don't launch trivial lawsuits (because risk vs. reward isn't great enough), you don't launch lawsuits simply for the purpose of harassing someone (because then you'll lose), and you don't launch lawsuits if you don't think you have a strong enough case to win.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I never read much into it, but Slashdot covered this story a while back: Facebook Founder Accused of Hacking Into Rivals' Email.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
It's important to realise that media / arts can be copyrighted, as they are ostensibly physical products (although that tends to include digital media these days) that have been created by someone, so your MP3 can be copyrighted and the rights holder protected.
Your name, address and phone number are NOT copyrightable, because they are not considered artforms with a physical manifestation, they are merely facts.
I am a human male, 42 years old, living in Philippines. These facts can NOT be copyrighted.
Now apply this rule to Facebook. Sure, any photos and videos you post CAN be copyrighted, as they are physical artforms. Your personal bio cannot.
And as TFA was about scraping biodata, i.e. non-copyrightable data, the guy had a perfectly valid case, but was scared off by the big boys brandishing loaded lawyers.
And you still need to get a grip.
Wow! I was thinking if nobody'd posted a link to Lessig's recent stuff, that I'd get an easy +5 and feel good about myself doing it. Now I see the first mention of it is currently sitting at +2 and I just feel sad. The corrupting influence of money on the US government is a crucial problem we have to solve right away, and I hope a lot of slashdot readers get that and want to help.
Maybe I'm reading too much into moderation. In fact, I hope the parent isn't highly up-moderated because everyone already knows about fix congress first.
"Preceded by itself yields falsehood" preceded by itself yields falsehood.