Here's the deal.
I am working on a web service. There is already an existing market, which is mostly dominated by two players, which provide a whole range of products and services for the target industry.
What I am working on is improving on a certain aspect of this environment. To do that successfully I need to develop a bridge that will enable my customers to integrate with their existing systems (which run other aspects of the business process).
These current market players will probably not help us integrate into their environment, since they already sell a competing product (with inferior user experience and overall quality).
I haven't yet contacted the vendors yet. And honestly don't think I can gain much from that - since their core competence is not IT and are pretty old school type business.
So what I would like to know if this kind of reverse engineering is legal in EU and US. And does it matter on what level it is implemented (e.g.: straight DB access vs protocol reverse engineering). I haven't gotten hold of the vendor system yet, so I don't have a clear picture of what will have to be done to achieve what I set out to do.
So what I am after from HN: What are the ways they can (assuming they come after me) impair my activities and what I can do to avoid getting lawsuited off the face of the earth.
