Re: Don't cache things against content providers' wishes. Re: Draft finding - "Transitioning the Web to HTTPS"

Mark Watson wrote:
> 
> ​I'm suggesting that a technical ​solution based on modification of
> others pages / code without consent is not legitimate. The business
> arrangement between ISP and customer (exchange free access for ads,
> say) is completely legitimate, but the technical implementation
> should not impact innocent, non-consenting bystanders by modifying -
> and often breaking - their services.
> 

OK.

>
> Just yesterday I agreed to watch a video ad in return for free
> internet access at an airport. It worked fine. They didn't modify
> anybody's code or otherwise interfere with my internet access, they
> just asked that I watch the ad before enabling internet access.
> 

There's a reason most business models aren't based on the honor system.

>
> Inserting ads into someone else's page is no different in principle
> from modifying the ads that page is itself serving (since user
> attention per ad is diluted). Many would consider that to be theft of
> ad revenue.
> 

Interesting point, but not one I recall seeing adjudicated by the
courts. Using frames to include others' content has been adjudicated on
copyright grounds, not theft-of-service grounds. I have seen theft-of-
services arguments (but not lawsuits) against Google's redirection of
search-result URLs *and* use of HTTPS to enable "privacy" unless the
target pays for Google's advertising services, in which case it turns
out to be not so private.

The problem remains, how to draft either technical or policy solutions
against various undesirable uses, while allowing desirable uses, when
there's no consensus on where to draw the line between them....

As a content publisher, I never agreed to Google encapsulating requests
to my site within redirects so they can track what searches bring users
to my site -- without sharing that information with me even if I do pay
for GA etc. Posting links to my content, no problem, but intercepting
that traffic to Google's own benefit not mine? Where do they get off?

-Eric

Received on Monday, 26 January 2015 22:57:39 UTC