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Wikimedia Sends Cease and Desist Letter To Firm Providing Paid Editing Services
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "For months, Wikipedia has been battling a company called 'Wiki-PR,' which purportedly sells paid editing services on Wikipedia and in October announced it had blocked or banned hundreds of Wiki-PR's sockpuppet accounts in response. Now Cyrus Farivar reports at Ars Technica that the Wikimedia Foundation (which runs Wikipedia) is escalating its game, issuing a cease and desist letter to Wiki-PR, demanding that the company immediately halt editing Wikipedia 'unless and until [Wiki-PR has] fully complied with the terms and conditions outlined by the Wikimedia Community.' The attorney representing the Wikimedia Foundation, Patrick Gunn, wrote that 'you admitted that Wiki-PR has continued to actively market paid advocacy editing services despite the ban — consistent with evidence that we have discovered independently. ... Should you fail to comply with the terms of this cease and desist letter, Wikimedia Foundation is prepared to take any necessary legal action to protect its rights.'"
Any time I try to contribute to wikipedia it's just reverted by some 15 year old control freak. What we need is an open platform where anyone can contribute.
Wikimedia soon to implement that sound business model.
Sig? Heil
Geez, I don't have the time to edit this Wikipedia thingy. Can't I pay someone to do it for me?
Seriously -- and I'm just playing Devil's advocate here so don't flame me -- but don't companies pay people in their communications departments to edit wikis related to their business? So, is it any different if you outsource it?
Proverbs 21:19
Under our current (ridiculous) law, it is a felony to break a website's ToS. Go on, Wikimedia, don't just sue them, make them into life-long criminals!
Slightly risky though. At the moment, this company is just breaching terms and conditions.
If you use stolen accounts, you're well into the territory of criminal hacking (unauthorised acces to computer systems).
Considering that the "terms and conditions outlined by the Wikimedia Community" include a specific directive to "ignore all rules" if they get in the way of improving the encyclopedia, it's going to be really hard to make this stick. I don't see this legal threat going anywhere and I suspect it will simply be disregarded and forgotten.
This is bullshit and a clear indication of the authoritarian/statist bias of wikipedia. Wikipedia should base its work on the concept of LIBERTY, not locked down by self-proclaimed strongarm rulers and kings. What a joke wikipedia has become. I hope someone starts up a new one that is, you know, actually FREE to edit. In a TRULY free wikipedia, only the best articles will naturally emerge. Guaranteed.
If they keep editing articles for money and violating Wikipedia's terms of service after getting the demand letter, they expose themselves to massive civil claims. Since they make money, this creates assets that can then be sued for and seized/garnished via court order.
Also I severely doubt they'd go the malware/malicious route because they'd have to stop being a open company and retreat into the shadowy branches of the interwebs and thus limit their client base. Once they get caught sending malware, they expose themselves to criminal charges in addition to civil charges, and a whole host more civil damages due to clear malice.
If you are knowingly not following the terms and conditions that allow you to edit, then surely your use of the computer system to do so is just as unauthorized as if you had stolen an account to do so?
If my front door is left unlocked, you still wouldn't have a defense to burglary if you come in and take my TV.
Having to comply with terms of service, regardless of whether or not money gets involved is normal.
Every complex ecosystem has parasites and bottom-feeders. The internet and Wikipedia is no different.
I wish them luck in shutting these guys down.
as a reliable source of information
You mean it wasn't already?
Best Slashdot Co
Allows them to edit content pursuant to terms and conditions.
Score one for ToS violations punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act! Throw the book at 'em I say!
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
> juv(e)nile cock joke
fat chance
Hue.
This. If you access someone else's computer system outside of the allowed terms and conditions it sounds very much like it might come under the Computer Misuse Act in the UK, I guess other jurisdictions have similar laws preventing unauthorised access to computerised information systems.
Korma: Good
This page has been reverted and locked due to repeated marketing edits to the benefit of the subjects [X, Y, Z] and/or the detriment of subjects [A, B, C]. Page has been reverted to a pre-marketing edit and locked pending review.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Funny, here's what the edit page says: Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone—subject to certain terms and conditions.
Looks to me like if I want to edit, I am subject to the terms and conditions.
You do not have to create an account to edit a Wikipedia article.
Clicked submit too quickly...
And when you go to submit your edit on wikipedia you are told "By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, "
Yes, good ol' Libertarian "The government shouldn't violate my right to violate others rights!"
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Bingo.
All you're doing is paying for time, in order to compete with people who have copious free time.
Wikipedia is a war of attrition.
They could just lock and revert any page that has shown evidence that it has been edited ny paid pr companies and put a banner ontop of the page in question stating that the page has been locked for six months due to paid editing from a pr company. This would encourage companies not to do such things for fear of looking bad. The opposite of what they were hoping for.
So you don't have a problem with me repeatedly spray painting racial slurs on your house then, right? No need to get "government thugs" involved. You can just re-paint your house if you don't like it.
Of course, we've railed against this here on slashdot in the past. Because it was abused to silence dissenters. The plague of unilateral unread contracts and contract-like-legal-entities are putting people under thousands if not tens of thousands of stipulations they don't even know about.
I don't like spammers, and I wish they'd burn forever, but these laws make me extraordinarily wary. I read somewhere that if every agreed-to-EULA was analyzed and explained properly by a lawyer, it would take far, far more than 24 man-hours per lawyer in the world per day to do. That's just a symptom that something is terribly, terribly broken.
It's not as clear cut as that. The intent of the law is not to criminalise failing to adhere to the T&Cs. A good defence lawyer will argue that access was authorised, and editing was authorised. The specific editing they do is outside of the scope of the law and entirely a matter of contract. A Jury is likely to be pretty reluctant to find guilty in a case that's clearly a contract dispute.
Stealing a television is stealing a television whether there's a contract clause in place or not.
The case law is inconclusive. There has been a case covering this but while the initial finding was a guilty verdict, this was set aside on appeal. I could certainly imagine others agreeing with the judges point "Allowing a conscious violation of website's Terms of Service to be a misdemeanor violation of the CFAA would essentially give a website owner the power to define criminal conduct".
If you use somebody else's access for a system that you have been explicitly barred from though, it's pretty clear cut.
It seems as though this company is violating Wikimedia's ToS. Doesn't that mean the same law they used against Aaron Schwartz applies to them? Maybe Wikimedia can press charges and have these people who actually have malicious intent and are knowingly breaking the law can serve some jail time. If only there were some system in place that could apply laws evenly to all people...
If I came into your house and spay painted your walls because you left your door unlocked and left a note on the door saying please don't spray paint my house when I am away, would you sue me?
Even the Wikipedia people say that there's lots of information on Wikipedia that isn't reliable. Wikipedia should never be relied on as a source of truth or accuracy.
In any case, wasn't there a thing a few months ago where the editors were getting paid on the side?
If a company employee changes an article, why is that worse than a volunteer changing an article?
This, 100 times over. TOC should not be enforced by any criminal court in any country. Civil courts is a different matter. Breaking actual criminal laws is a different matter. Those criminal laws, however, should clearly spell out the crime and should not leave its definition up to anything a random person or company wants to throw into a TOS.
The US Government is, however, wrong. (a distinction which may not change the outcome, but which is, I think, very important).
As I mentioned in another comment in this thread US District judge George H. Wu has ruled otherwise. The US government's position is a legal opinion not a ruling.
The way to stop undesired behavior is to have it result in negative consequences. Just place the names of the offending companies on a T&C violators list at the bottom of each article.
Yes, good ol' Libertarian "The government shouldn't violate my right to violate others rights!"
I assume you made that up to sound clever.
From the very first part of their faq: http://www.lp.org/faq "Essentially, we believe all Americans should be free to live their lives and pursue their interests as they see fit as long as they do no harm to another." I'm pretty sure that the "do no harm to another" phrase applies here.
No.
You see what will happen is that this will be taken by WikiMedia as a civil claim since it
a) can award them money
b) has less of a burden of proof
c) sends a message to other astroturfers
Do you know why?
Because the criminal option is the first option of psychopaths, and it is those who slashdot rail against, not the application of law.
Moreover, the first option of psychopaths when their M.O. is being used against them in potentia is to whine about how that should not ever happen.
Moreover, for example with the McKinnon case and with Aaron more recently is that there was never any attempt to actually show the intent prohibited. Indeed the case for the claims were entirely empty. While in this case, those abusing TOS for WikiMedia are 100% ABSOLUTELY doing what is described as wrong in the TOS DELIBERATELY.
Where McKinnon never cracked passwords and those machines were never showing an internet access TOS because they were not ever supposed to have been visible from random user on the internet, and where Aaron ABSOLUTELY had right to access the documents, the astroturf group here is deliberaltely and with malice aforethought disobeying the TOS.
Where McKinnon and Aaron were doing so for altruism or conspiracy ideation reasons, this astroturf group is doing so purely for personal profit.
You forget what Liberals call "rights" are their right to take from you to support whatever cause their heart bleeds for.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_an_MMORPG
They're just banning griefers. It upsets the vocal high-level players who don't want to have their fun (squashing noobs) ruined.
Better yet, place a banner at the top of each page found to be edited for pay. The banner can read "Company/Person X has been found to pay to edit this article to hide the truth from you. We have reverted those changes but here is a list of things that they don't want you to know: " I'd think that this behavior would end real quick when the dirt they're trying to hide becomes the highlight of the article.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
Yes. Of course. The laws don't change based on doors being locked or unlocked.
So what? Doesn't change the hypocrisy that a good deal of libertarians only pay lip service to freedom with the ulterior motive of getting the government out of the way so that they themselves can infringe on others liberties and rights. Some line on a stupid website doesn't change that fact.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
So, it's the equivalent of a click through EULA?
I thought we didn't like those around here.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
The outside of your house is open for the whole world to spray paint. There's absolutely nothing preventing me from walking up to 90% of the houses in the US and doing so. If the owners give me permission, there's absolutely nothing wrong with me doing so either. If you tell me you're not OK with it though, that's a problem. Regardless of whether you told everyone on your block it's OK, if you tell me no, I'm breaking the law. Should you have to put up a 20 foot razor wire fence to keep me out? Or should the fact it's private property be enough?
Private property is private property.
You sound like a hate-radio gasbag.
Shepherd Book: If you take advantage of her, you're going to burn in a special level of hell. A level reserved for child molesters and people who talk in the theater.
The fact that Wiki-PR not only freely confesses to the violations but crows proudly about them in their own promotional literature helps Wikimedia should it ever go to court.
Unlike the hated EULA, here the T&Cs are presented up front and before you have paid money (in fact, you never have to pay money). The EULA is hated because it's sealed away in the box so you can't see it before you buy, and is generally a nearly unreadable wall of text packed with unconscionable conditions.
MY ox? No I bloody wouldn't be cheering them on, and you have no reason to believe I would. So now we're going from hypocrisy to outright dishonesty. I doubt it's even what the majority of slashdot thinks, but that doesn't matter.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
They're not taking anything
That is every vandals excuse and it's a lie. What all vandals take from their victim is hard work and pride. But this is not random teenage vandalism, this is vandalism as a business plan, propaganda companies must not be allowed to profit at the expense of every other internet user. Conservapedia is more than happy to serve up propaganda, why did the company not post it's crap there?
I'm not an American, but the popular US attitude that it's ok for companies to be dishonest and immoral in business dealings has completely fucked that country in the last 20yrs. It's the root cause of the GFC and the reason why the whole planet is pissed at the US right now, economic spying on friendly nations is cheating, and the US was caught systematically cheating. But hey, the fastest gun in the west can do whatever he likes, right?
Wall Street tip: Gordon Gecko was the villain of the story, not the hero.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You do when the vast majority of "interesting" articles are semiprotected, or when you share an IP block with someone with a history of vandalism.
... that Wikipedians can't be overprotective of their edits or biased against newbies or can't be zealots or um paid advocates?
Try making significant improvements to the Slashdot lead. I guarantee you'll be reverted within a week.
Please try to read the whole post, numbnuts. A click-through contract is enforceable, but (at least in my jurisdiction) more likely to be interpreted in favour of the person who got no say in the language. So, if it is click-through AND misleading then etc.
Just explain it to the court like that to get damages.
The good news is, the more they repeat the crime, the worse it looks in court.
Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
Many commenters here have, unfortunately, assumed that Wikimedia and its lawyers are acting in good faith, when in fact they are not and almost never do. Wikimedia's Terms of Service actually say nothing at all about what Wiki-PR has been doing - not even implicitly. The ToS prohibits "misrepresentation of affiliations," and it says nothing about non-representation of affiliations, people using multiple accounts, or even people editing for pay, all of which are allowed (and sometimes even encouraged) on most (if not all) Wikimedia "projects," depending solely on who is doing it. My guess would be that the lawyers hired by Wikimedia deliberately lied about the content of the ToS because they assumed (perhaps correctly) that nobody would actually read them, and the strongly-worded letter featuring this lie would make it appear as though the Wikimedia Foundation is willing to take an active role in combating commercial activity on Wikipedia, something it has never really done in the past.
The reality is that if this case were to actually go to court, Wikimedia would have no case - and not only would they lose, but the loss could set a dangerous precedent that could conceivably make it much more difficult for other interactive website operators to fully control who can say what, anonymously or otherwise, on sites they own.
US case law is already heavily slanted towards commercial interests, to the point of having corporations defined as legally equivalent to actual people, etc. It would be incredibly stupid for Wikimedia to mount a legal challenge of this nature in this kind of legal environment (though of course I should add that the stupidity of the Wikimedia Foundation is legendary, and unusually bad even for a social media property). If they really want to stop the activities of paid PR consultants on Wikipedia, they should devote their considerable financial resources to developing software features to help identify such people, and they should also hire paid investigators to ferret them out, rather than rely on their already overly-exploited volunteers to do it.
There's an established precedent for all this - Compuserve vs Cyberpromo. Tresspass to Chattels. Wikimedia has the upper hand.
Well, yes, but if they can demonstrate that this company is behind it they may get a few thousand bucks compensation ;)
And a legal precedent that can have two possible scenarios:
A) Other such companies stop spamming Wikipedia ;)
B) Wikipedia finds a new source of income suing the spammers
-- 29A the number of the Beast
Around here, I would have to sue your estate because you would be dead...