Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by darawk 2962 days ago
> Pushing an ad to my browser is stealing - namely CPU cycles and network bandwidth. My terms and conditions (which they implicitly agree to by answering an HTTP request from me), forbid them from supporting themselves with advertising.

Great, and if those are your terms and conditions, guess what, nobody forces you to visit their websites.
2 comments
TeMPOraL 2962 days ago
Look, the only implicit conditions on the Web are those of networking protocols - which work in the following way: I can request whatever I want. You can do whatever you want with my request - namely serve it (e.g. HTTP 200 + data), refuse to serve it (e.g. HTTP 4xx / 5xx), or ignore it (just terminate the TCP connection, or not accept it in the first place). Whatever you choose, our interaction ends there. Whatever you sent me is now mine to interpret the way I want.

Anything beyond that is defined by laws, and there are no laws that tell me I have to use a Typical Browser in a Typical Configuration to render all the data you sent me with a HTTP 200 response. There are no such laws, and there can't be, because they would be completely ridiculous.

link
darawk 2962 days ago
> Anything beyond that is defined by laws, and there are no laws that tell me I have to use a Typical Browser in a Typical Configuration to render all the data you sent me with a HTTP 200 response. There are no such laws, and there can't be, because they would be completely ridiculous.

Not true. There exists a thing called contracts. Contracts allow two (or more!) parties to come to complex agreements about the manner and conduct of transactions. Terms of contracts can be quite broad, and specify the manner and mode of consumption, use, or disposition of goods and services.

Now, there is some debate over whether or not web users can meaningfully agree to such contracts. This is a legitimate debate. What is not a legitimate debate is how the semantics of the HTTP protocol relate to any of this.

link
shkkmo 2962 days ago
>Not true. There exists a thing called contracts. Contracts allow two (or more!) parties to come to complex agreements about the manner and conduct of transactions.

Um... it was completely true.

1) Contracts are not laws, they are agreements that have some ability be enforced by our legal system.

2) The are strong legal limitations (by actual laws) on what restrictions contracts can impose on "the manner and mode of consumption, use, or disposition of goods and services"

3) There is no debate as to whether web users can meaningfully agree to such contracts. If the terms of the contract are illegal, then the contract is invalid. A recent example is the FCC's recent statement about warranty stickers. There is debate as to what degree the common trope "check here to agree to our ToS" actually constitutes agreement to a contract.

4) You seem to have backed yourself into a corner where websites must explicitly get you to agree to now block their ads before showing you content. This still isn't stealing, but it may be a breach of contract. Now do you have any examples of websites that are doing this? Or has your entire point been to acuse 0 people of breaching 0 contracts?

link
DmenshunlAnlsis 2962 days ago
That’s... not how contracts work. Contracts require signatories and notiries and so on. There is no debate to be had here, unless you’re making some wild claims about what people are agreeing to. Informal agreements between computers or even people are not legally binding contracts, and neither are Get requests.
link
darawk 2962 days ago
> That’s... not how contracts work. Contracts require signatories and notiries and so on.

While that is a common misconception, it is false. Contracts do not require signatures or notaries. Signatures and notaries help to make a contract more enforceable, but they are not required for a contract to be enforceable. An email exchange can constitute a legally binding contract. Even a verbal exchange. The notion that signatures or notaries or any such formalities are required is simply untrue.

link
rdiddly 2962 days ago
Obviously. Just like nobody forces them to answer HTTP requests.

Your comment is mighty thin gruel, intellectually speaking. Couldn't handle reading the second whole paragraph where it's revealed that this is a thought experiment?

link