An HTTP request is not hacking. It's a GET followed by a 200 OK. The server has the option to redirect to a paywall, or respond with 403 Forbidden, or do any number of things. That they are responding with 200 is not a bug that we're exploiting maliciously.
Exploiting a server that exposes a root console by mistake would also be fine under the same logic. You haven't given any principled distinction between the two.
By installing an adblocker, you're intentionally blocking access. Is your argument that you didn't realize the website didn't allow it? You think that will hold up in court?
I'm blocking it once it reaches my computer. The website doesn't have any say with what happens on my computer. I'm not hacking their servers or doing anything their servers disallow. My web browser is sending them a request and they are responding with content. That's their only point at which they have a say in what happens.
I don't know why you have such a hard time understanding this. The case you linked to involves someone exploiting a bug in a server.
There's no bugs or exploits involved with the ad-blocking scenario. Sure, the website intends me to view the site with the ads, but what you are failing to understand is, they have no moral or legal right to tell me what I do with the bytes that they purposefully, in full awareness, sent me.
How is "bug" defined, and why does it make a legal difference in liability?
What does "in full awareness" mean? If they knew you were blocking ads, they wouldn't have sent it. The bug is that they didn't detect it. Why is ATTs thing a bug and this not?
You can't be serious with this. You think it's a bug that a website doesn't know what I'm going to do with the bytes they send to me?
I think the fundamental issue you are having is that you don't believe in property rights. Namely you don't think that my computer is mine, and that stuff that gets transferred to it; assuming the transfer was done legally in good faith, belongs to me.
I highly doubt you feel this way about meatspace; I doubt you think someone who hands me an apple has the right to tell me how to eat it. Yet when it comes to computers, you do feel this way.
pdkl95 has done a much better job than me of arguing this point, so I should probably just stop. But it bears repeating:
HTTP is not a contract. Sending me your content is not me agreeing to do stuff that is linked on some other page. If you want me to agree to view ads, or paypal you $20 first, or give you my first born child; you need to send me to another page first where I agree to it. TOS is not a gotcha. You can't trick people to agreeing to something; there has to be a "meeting of the minds".
This is precisely the point that I'm disputing, not the notion of property rights.
You still haven't given any definition of the terms you're trying to use to justify a distinction between the two. You claimed that any time someone requests something over http and the server sends data back, the person cannot have been doing anything illegal. You have not given any principled difference between that and the cases where courts found differently.
I've linked to lawyers making the same argument as me; I don't believe you've found any lawyers who agree with your claims here.
Re contracts: as I've said, that applies to scenarios when you've agreed to TOS. If you know a website has certain terms, then accessing it is agreeing to them. So your point is only valid if you can credibly claim that you didn't know the website doesn't allow ad blocking. If you think you can convince a judge that you had no idea some websites don't allow ad blocking, and that you therefore had no intention of breaking any agreements by browsing the web with your ad blocker installed, do whatever you want. But the very fact that we're having this conversation and you aren't telling me "no website would ever outlaw ad blockers in their terms" means that you recognize it as a possibility. It would be an interesting legal question as to whether mere probable knowledge (i.e. negligence) can suffice to be liable, or one would need to demonstrate actual knowledge: if the latter is found to be the legal interpretation, then I suspect ad blockers could be required to recognize when a site refuses to be viewed with an ad blockers, and not show the site at all then. Installing an ad blocker that doesn't do this would then be malicious.
This is admittedly speculation, although it gets closer as to what the actual legal question would be here. If you can cite precedent that bears on this directly, that would be better.
"In full awareness" means they know they are sending you data and that you are free to do whatever you want with it. You could view it with Lynx, or some other text only browser, or with a modern browser with Javascript turned off, or with an ad blocker, or with a computer program or script. There's no contract or agreement that says you have to display the data returned from the web server in any specific manner.
> If they knew you were blocking ads, they wouldn't have sent it. The bug is that they didn't detect it.
No, they have no way of detecting it. That's not a bug, it's how the medium functions. You might as well say radio stations wouldn't transmit if they knew I turned them off for a few minutes during commercial breaks, and claim that that is a bug, and that I am illegally exploiting that bug for free radio.
Oh my goodness, I went to the bathroom during a commercial break when watching TV last night. How much should I pay the TV station for stealing that show from them?
>You might as well say radio stations wouldn't transmit if they knew I turned them off for a few minutes during commercial breaks, and claim that that is a bug, and that I am illegally exploiting that bug for free radio.
Radio stations inherently can't selectively broadcast. Websites can.
The fact that websites already attempt to prevent ad blocked users from viewing content means that they would block it if they would know. Exploiting the fact that they don't know in a particular case (by using ad blocker blocker blockers, which are a thing) is exploiting a bug.
Plenty of websites have a contract or agreement about data they send you. See e.g. Youtube's terms of service, section 5.C.
> Radio stations inherently can't selectively broadcast. Websites can.
If they can, then there's no problem. If they can't selectively broadcast, or can't do it exactly as they want to, then you're back to the radio case.
> The fact that websites already attempt to prevent ad blocked users from viewing content means that they would block it if they would know.
Fine, but they apparently don't know how to block everyone they want to, so it's their choice to continue sending data to everyone they aren't blocking.
> Exploiting the fact that they don't know in a particular case (by using ad blocker blocker blockers, which are a thing) is exploiting a bug.
No, that's not even close to a bug. You clearly don't know what a bug is. This is a limitation of the transmission medium, known by all parties, where all parties can chose to stop participating at any time. They are in general unable to verify with certainty what any given client will do with the data that the server sends back. This is a property of the protocol used by everyone, not a bug in the server's software.
> Plenty of websites have a contract or agreement about data they send you. See e.g. Youtube's terms of service, section 5.C.
That says nothing about not displaying ads - it's talking about violating copyright. And it's not something it even normally displays to people AFAIK.
For the 1000th time, SHOW that contract. Do you even understand what a contract is? Youtube et al have a document they call the "terms of service", but that is not a contract.
Seriously, show where Youtube offered terms, where the user had the opportunity to read, review, and understand those terms, and where they signal their acceptance and intention to be bound by the terms of the contract. The exchange of consideration - that is, Youtube sending a video in exchange for the user giving their time to watch certain ads - only happens after the offer and acceptance.
Documents don't magically become contracts because you wish they were binding. Do I really need to include a link to a TOS for reading my comments to demonstrate why unilateral contracts are an insane idea?
This belief that you get to control what people do with data after you hand it over is highly unusual and antisocial.
Your "hacking" analogy is irrelevant; hacking and contracts are completely different categories of law.
> the law
I am very familiar with contract law. You might want to read about it sometime. HTTP does not involve an offer, a meeting of the minds about the obligations the contract would create for each party, or anything that signals acceptance of the offer.
If you want to argue that an HTTP request creates any obligation for either party, then you need to show the elements[1] that created the contract.
There are two different points here. Firstly, the claim that merely requesting data can't be illegal is shown to be wrong by hacking, which is illegal even if it only consists of requests. Second, the comparison to contracts is when the TOS was agreed to. Even the EFF agrees that they can be legally binding, as I linked to elsewhere. https://www.eff.org/wp/clicks-bind-ways-users-agree-online-t...
Asking for a page over HTTP isn't hacking; again, this is entirely off-topic.
> TOS
The TOS wasn't even presented to the client. (an <a> tag to the TOS isn't a the TOS itself, nor is it an offer of a contract. It isn't even an "invitation to treat".
> agreed to
Nothing has been agreed to. An HTTP request sends a GET, and the server volunteered to send a page of content as their reply. They could have sent an offer of a contract, or some sort of "access denied" message, or any other response.
> See also
LOL. That page is a nice example of properly handling a request.
The use of ad blockers is on the rise, especially...
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To view the full article, register now.
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Sorry, no, I'm no going to register for a shady site like that just to read someone's legal fantasies.
See what just happened there? They made an offer, I declined to accept it and didn't receive the content. You negotiate the contract before you exchange consideration.
I'm sure there will be lawsuits against ad blockers. That's what failing businesses do. That doesn't mean their claims are valid.
Contracts are not surprises or gotchas. Show how the elements of a contract (an offer, acceptance of that offer, each party's intent to be bound, and the exchange of consideration), or your claims are just wishful thinking.
>Nothing has been agreed to. An HTTP request sends a GET, and the server volunteered to send a page of content as their reply. They could have sent an offer of a contract, or some sort of "access denied" message, or any other response.
Again, as the example above shows, this logic has not been accepted by the courts.
Re law360: I followed a link from Google and didn't realize that it was regwalled.
By accessing and continuing to access a website, you agree to their terms.