[BonesJustice]

> Of course it's stealing.

Oh, really?

What about the websites who allow dozens of third parties to serve me an unknown quantity and quality of content that I did not request? They steal my bandwidth, compute cycles, and privacy.

And what about data brokers? My browsing history is my work product; I create it through my own actions. Much of the information that data brokers sell about me would not and could not exist without my direct contributions. When they sell that data, do I get an appropriate share of their profits? No. They are regularly stealing and profiting from my work. The websites you claim I'm 'stealing' from are giving away tons of my information without anything even approaching affirmative consent.

[darawk]

> What about the websites who allow dozens of third parties to serve me an unknown quantity and quality of content that I did not request? They steal my bandwidth, compute cycles, and privacy.

Yes, even then. You have no right to the content they produce. They offer it up for you, contingent upon you consuming it commensurate with the terms they've set out. If you don't like those terms, don't consume the content. It's that simple.

[BonesJustice]

> They offer it up for you, contingent upon you consuming it commensurate with the terms they've set out. If you don't like those terms, don't consume the content. It's that simple.

What 'terms'? They're essentially giving third parties the ability to inject anything they want into their websites. How can they meaningfully establish 'terms' if they have willingly given up the ability to hold up their end of those terms?

If, the first time I visit a website, they actually bother to:

  1. Disclose everything they and their affiliates will do with my information;
  2. Disclose the sources of any and all content that will be served;
  3. Get my affirmative consent before allowing me in;
  4. Not share *any* information until I consent;

Then, and only then, would there be some reasonable semblance of 'terms'. As things are now, they couldn't possibly do any of that, because they themselves don't even know what they're serving up, or what will be done with my information.

If your 'terms' are, "we can do anything we want with your device and Internet connection when you visit our website, but you can't do anything except view what is served to you, as it is served", then you do not have terms; you have a farce.

[orwin]

This is practically GDPR.

[darawk]

> What 'terms'? They're essentially giving third parties the ability to inject anything they want into their websites. How can they meaningfully establish 'terms' if they have willingly given up the ability to hold up their end of those terms?

The terms are that you run the code they give you. If you don't like those terms, don't go. Simple as that.

[danShumway]

> The terms are that you run the code they give you.

Just like if I hand you a box of donuts on the street you have to eat all of them, right now, in front of me, and hope that none of them contain battery acid.

Seriously though, a requirement to run code has never been an implicit TOS on the web - if a site wants to introduce those terms, it needs to actually propose them when I visit the site.

A website can't retroactively propose terms after I've visited.

[politician]

I understand you to be suggesting that it's like as if you went to a restaurant whose terms were that you must eat the food you're served -- force fed -- and that if "you don't like those terms, you shouldn't have come to this restaurant". However, these terms are not disclosed until you visit.

Is that the position you're trying to advance?

[BonesJustice]

Also, if you get some horrible disease from eating our food, we're totally not responsible. I mean, yeah, we let randos walk in off the street and sprinkle whatever they want in your food, but you really should have expected that. We're sorry your daughter died, but maybe next time you'll read the thousand pages of terms and conditions that we buried out in the back yard.

[darawk]

Close. I believe that uninformed consent is not consent. In order to meaningfully enter any agreement both parties must understand what they're agreeing to. However, what that means is that a website ought to have the right to put up a page that says "Hey, if you want to proceed and view our content, we require that you turn off ad blockers. If you don't, then please do not view our content", and that to proceed anyway is theft.

To modify your analogy: If a restaurant says to you when you arrive "If you want to eat here, you must eat the food you're served, force fed. Do you still want to eat here?" And then you say "Yes", then yes, you are obligated to abide their terms.

[politician]

Do you believe the operator is liable for any damages their website causes to computers whose owners disable their content protection software (e.g. ad blockers) in order to comply the the site agreement?

Do websites take on a duty to protect visitors from the foreseeable harm that malicious ads cause to unprotected computers by requiring content protection software to be disabled?

[shkkmo]

> If a restaurant says to you when you arrive "If you want to eat here, you must eat the food you're served, force fed. Do you still want to eat here?" And then you say "Yes", then yes, you are obligated to abide their terms.

I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

They can require you to pay for the meal if you don't eat all of it. They can't legally force you to eat the food.

If a website poses an interstitial that says "To access this content you must agree to disable your ad-blockers or purchase a subscriptions." and you click "agree" but do not disable ad-blockers or subscribe, then you have a point. However, you are in breach of contract, and there is still no theft.

However, the agreement MUST be explicitly agreed to. If another visitor clicks a link that goes straight to the content, they are not in breach of contract because they did not explicitly agree.

[stordoff]

If an ad. includes malware, am I contractually obliged to run it? That position doesn't seem tenable.

Further, what does "run" mean in this context? For example, I don't download images by default on mobile devices - is that not "run[ning] the code"? - or different rendering engines, or screen-readers, that run the same code differently.