in reply to legality of extracting content from websites

This is an issue that really bothers me; the idea that theft is all right as long as you are stealing from a big company. And the rampant convoluted justifications that go along with it.
By using yahoo mail, you have entered into a contract with them. A contract that says what they will provide and what you will provide. Violating the terms of that contract and still using the product is theft- plain and simple, black and white.
If you don't want the ads, don't use their service. Pay for a service that makes its money from your contribution, not the contributions of advertisers.
The same applies to stealing cable, shoplifting, software piracy, hiding income from the government, etc. Theft is theft, no matter who you are stealing from.
The implication that I hear from some people that they are modern day Robin Hood's (although stealing from the rich and giving to yourself is suspect) bothers me.
The outrageous justifications that people use to pretend that it isn’t theft bother me. Particularly the justification that the big companies deserve to lose the money because of their bad business practices. That's crap.
If you have a problem with bad business practices then fix it the right way. Vote in every election from your local school board up to the Presidential Election and write to your elected official often, pointing out that you vote and that your vote is based on this issue (and any other issues that are important to you)1. Two wrongs don't cancel each other out. Especially when one of the wrongs is just a conscience-soothing justification for getting something for free.
BTW, I don't work for Yahoo or any other big company. I just feel strongly about the issue. Feel free to down vote me, but I'm tired of this behavior.

1"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." —John Philpot Curran


-pete
"Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere."
  • Comment on Re: legality of extracting content from websites

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Re: Re: legality of extracting content from websites
by wolfger (Deacon) on Jul 17, 2003 at 17:13 UTC
    I have to laugh out loud here... A guy styling himself as a pirate (dread pirate, no less) is lecturing that it's wrong to steal? LOL!

    First off, scraping the e-mail without the ads is no more illegal than reading the e-mail without looking at the ads. So far as I know, no law (or portion of the TOS) requires that we actually read the ad.

    And you suggestion that we change bad business practices by voting???!? Last time I checked, "president of Yahoo" wasn't an elected position. Politicians cannot stop businesses from having bad business practices. The only way to change bad business practices is to make the company lose money (which shouldn't be hard to do if the practices are really bad, right?)

    Now as far as TOS goes, I can use a browser to go check my mail and scrape the message from the browser, and I haven't violated the TOS. I'm using their interface the way it was intended to be used. I'm just not physically at my computer when I do so.

    Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it - even if I have said it - unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. -- Buddha
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