

Facebook claims data portability is criminal - yanw
http://blog.dataportability.org/2010/05/06/facebook-claims-data-portability-is-criminal/

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grellas
I read through the EFF brief yesterday (in connection with a related post) and
summarized the key points of the legal dispute on this issue here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320040>.

Essentially, the criminal statute prohibits unauthorized access to user data
on a network (among other things), a precedent exists by which ConnectU was
found to have violated the criminal statute for having scraped user emails
(and spammed the users) without their permission and in violation of
Facebook's terms of service, and Facebook is now claiming that Power Ventures
is similarly violating the statute by accessing user data in violation of its
TOS - EFF (filing its brief as a "friend of the court" and not as a party to
the dispute) claims that this is absurd given that users own their own
information and therefore it cannot be a crime for Power to access it with
their permission (even if it is a done in violation of the TOS).

FB's position on this does in fact appear to be absurd, and I would strongly
suspect the claim will be bounced from the case.

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abstractbill
Until now I've been mostly ignoring the uproar over Facebook privacy concerns
- if I didn't want people knowing stuff about me, I just wouldn't put it
online.

However, if Facebook wins this particular battle (and if I've understood the
battle itself correctly), then I will leave. It would be evil for them to
claim that my data is theirs, and that I can't authorize a third party to
access it.

~~~
strebler
If they win, I say we investigate (en masse) as to whether or not their
datacenters are compatible with both pitchforks and fire.

~~~
die_sekte
Anything is compatible with sufficiently accelerated pitchforks.

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digitallogic
_IF_ that is the case aren't they in violation of the same statute via the
contact importer which accesses contacts from a user's email account?

~~~
DrSprout
Only if the user's email account is hosted on a service with a similar TOS.

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alanh
> If any violation of terms of use is criminal, users who shave a few years
> off their age in their profile, claim to be single when they are married, or
> change jobs or addresses without updating Facebook right away would also
> have violated the criminal law.

From the EFF. Very convincing (IANAL)

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lukeqsee
Facebook is disturbingly anti-user. Such hypocrisy! With one hand they build
their platform on open-source tools that thrived on data sharing, and with the
other they take away the basic rights of online users.

I'm very close to saying forget it. I can see all the pictures anyways. (At
the rate their privacy is decreasing.)

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ErrantX
Woah. link bait title much?

As I said the other day I don't currently read much into what Facebook are
saying - it's a legal argument as part of their much wider fight with
Power.com. The EFF are, quite rightly, stepping in to try and stop any ruling
in _this_ case opening the way for ToS violations to come under criminal law.

I'm yet to be convinced Facebook are claiming this generally; the case is much
much wider than this one issue.

EDIT: I see "data portability" is a site dedicated to open/portable standards
- rather than a service which was my initial reaction. In which case the title
has a little more merit.

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alanh
Sounds "open" to me؟

