SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for FatPhil
Good news out of the Ninth Circuit: the federal court of appeals heeded EFF's advice and rejected an attempt by Oracle to hold a company criminally liable for accessing Oracle's website in a manner it didn't like. The court ruled back in 2012 that merely violating a website's terms of use is not a crime under the federal computer crime statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But some companies, like Oracle, turned to state computer crime statutes—in this case, California and Nevada—to enforce their computer use preferences.
This decision shores up the good precedent from 2012 and makes clear—if it wasn't clear already—that violating a corporate computer use policy is not a crime.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Ninth Circuit Doubles Down: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 46 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Cum tacent, clamant. When they are silent, they shout. -Cicero
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:31PM (3 children)
You are like a restaurant that serves free bread; you cannot get angry when a customer eats said bread and then gets up and walks away without buying anything—just like it was the restaurants' choice to send out bread, it was your choice to publish that comment for my consumption.
Now, if I had to click "I Agree" before receiving some portion of your comment, then that's an entirely different matter.
Ultimately, what makes a contract work is whether it can be enforced.
Can you enforce your supposed contract?
What the Courts have said here is that a particular contract is not a matter of criminal law, and thus cannot be enforced by the criminal justice system.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:52PM (2 children)
Your not really wrong about the whole internet thing, but you shouldn't assume your free bread is free.
"You are like a restaurant that serves free bread; you cannot get angry when a customer eats said bread and then gets up and walks away without buying anything"
In a lot of places, the free bread is not free. If you touch the basket it, its added to your bill; in some places accepting the basket to your table adds it to your bill. In a lot of such places, the bread is then removed from your bill by placing an order, because the bread is free with the purchase of a meal. In most places, adding it and removing it from your bill is academic; ... unless you decide to leave without ordering.
A lot of restaurants in North America would let you leave without issue if you had to leave for some reason without placing an order (it happens) and its just a cost of doing business and creates good will. But if you started showing up to eat free bread and then leave, you'd rapidly discover its not free anymore.
"just like it was the restaurants' choice to send out bread"
They offered bread, you accepted it. They also offer you drinks...do you assume you can drink them and leave too?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:00PM
That is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @08:35AM
Why? Just why?
Over here the waiter brings the bread once you have ordered. Problem solved.