Re: Interesting post relating to Deep Linking

On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-04-06 at 10:08 -0400, noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com wrote:
>> Assuming this post is accurate, Mr. Warden was threatened with lawsuits
>> from Facebook.  He built a more or less garden variety crawler, he claims,
>> and he observed the limitations in Facebook's robots.txt.  Nonetheless,
>> they apparently made him destroy the data.  See [1].  Anyone know more
>> about this?
>
> I don't know more about it, but this looks like a lot more than
> just linking; he's re-using/republishing their data. robots.txt
> is not a "terms of service" document or license or anything.
>
> Their terms of service says, among other things:
>
> "If you are a developer or operator of a Platform application or website, the following additional terms apply to you

The parsing is ambiguous. Is it "(Platform application) or (Platform
website)"  or "(Platform application) or (website)"

If the former, then it isn't applicable to him. If the latter, the
document is poorly written and difficult to interpret, for example,
what if you are a developer of a website unrelated to facebook. Do all
the provisions apply to you?

-Alan



>   ...
>
> 8. We can limit your access to data."
>  -- Special Provisions Applicable to Developers/Operators of
> Applications and Websites
>  Facebook | Statement of Rights and Responsibilities
>  http://www.facebook.com/terms.php
>
>> Noah
>>
>> [1]
>> http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/04/how-i-got-sued-by-facebook.html
>
>
> --
> Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
> gpg D3C2 887B 0F92 6005 C541  0875 0F91 96DE 6E52 C29E
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 6 April 2010 14:49:51 UTC