Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime
This is positive news. It seems like the more liberal approach taken when protocols were written is being challenged more by young users who grew up under more stable rules that accepted terms of service as very strong.<p>When I was growing up you went by what the protocol allowed. If an http response came back you have access, if it prompted for credentials, then you didn’t have access.<p>The mere idea that a web server gives you info and then you have to check a TOS that you might not even know exists is foreign to me. But when I talked with a young programmer they kind of agreed with Oracle saying “otherwise you could just request everything from every possible address.” They were unfamiliar with war drivers or even how early web crawlers started.