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0 pointsCoastalCoder3y ago0 comments

I don't think I know the answer, but I'm curious:

Does violating a website's TOS meant your accessing it beyond your authority, making it a violation of the US's Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?

0 comments

tumult3y ago

Not a violation. Decided by Supreme Court in 2021. Van Buren vs. United States. It was a big deal.

zja3y ago

Violating TOS no; Gaining access beyond your authority maybe https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/07/court-violating-terms-...

CoastalCoderOP3y ago

I was assuming that in this case, a person's authority was specifically granted by the ToS.

I wondered if the interplay of those two concepts muddied the waters.

danaris3y ago

I don't have a source for this, but my recollection is that this has been successfully argued by a couple of companies—but then an appeals court found very firmly that it was not the case.

Essentially, having that be true would mean that any given website could create whole new classes of criminal behavior.

zinekeller3y ago

> having that be true would mean that any given website could create whole new classes of criminal behavior.

While this is true, reading the lawsuit it is clear that Meta is suing in civil court, so maybe they're trying to enforce their contract, especially their automated collection ToS (https://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos_terms.php)?

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