[darawk]

> In this case there is no contract. The websites are really giving their things away for free, only with the expectation , but no guarantee, that some users will see ads.

This does seem to be the crux of our disagreement. You think that offering up your content merely represents a non-binding expectation. In other domains, we don't take that position. If I weave you a scarf, and I say "Hey, i'll give you this scarf if you go to the store and pick up some cough medicine for me", and then you take the scarf and refuse to go to the store for me on the grounds that I "merely had the expectation, but no guarantee that you would go to the store for me", that seems pretty odd. I'm curious:

A) Whether you believe these situations are different

And

B) If you believe they're different, why.

[TeMPOraL]

They're different because in the scarf example, you're expressing the expectation before giving the scarf. In the web example, the expectation is applied retroactively. It's as if you gave me the scarf, no strings attached, and later said "oh, since I gave you that scarf, I also want you to go to the store and pick up some cough medicine for me".

On the web, we have a way to handle the exact equivalent to your scenario. We do that by ensuring the user agrees to go to the store before handing them over a scarf. For instance, on the protocol level, you could reject all GET requests that do not have attached the proof of acceptance of the cough medicine quest. The rejection message (e.g. 403 Forbidden) would contain a machine-interpretable requirement of the quest. That synergizes well with the legal level - faking proof of quest acceptance would (AFAIK) constitute unauthorized access to scarf under CFAA. At the same time, the valid proof could match the legal definition of informed consent. It also meshes well with the social level, as whoever reads the 403 response (e.g. in their browser) would see the need to consent to the quest in order to get the scarf. Consenting to the quest, taking the scarf, and then not doing the quest would rightfully classify me as a thief and an asshole.

[darawk]

> They're different because in the scarf example, you're expressing the expectation before giving the scarf. In the web example, the expectation is applied retroactively. It's as if you gave me the scarf, no strings attached, and later said "oh, since I gave you that scarf, I also want you to go to the store and pick up some cough medicine for me".

I'm glad we've come to agreement, then :). I agree, if the expectations are unstated, there is no agreement, and nobody is bound by unstated expectations.

If the website makes you agree to not use an ad blocker, you agree, and then still do it, that's stealing. If you do not undergo this interrogative exchange, then it's not stealing.

[TeMPOraL]

Yes, that I agree with.

EDIT: maybe not 100% agree, because I'm not confident that "stealing" is the right word. The concept of theft carries extra connotations and constraints with it, and I'm too tired today to go into exploring this. But I definitely agree that if you consented to a contract and then proceeded to break it, then you're both morally in the wrong, and liable for any consequences that can be legally enforced.

Also, out of curiosity, looking at all your comments in this thread - is all this discussion a one big exercise at applying stuff from Scott Alexander's "Varieties of Argumentative Experience"? ;).

[darawk]

> Also, out of curiosity, looking at all your comments in this thread - is all this discussion a one big exercise at applying stuff from Scott Alexander's "Varieties of Argumentative Experience"? ;).

Haha, well, I did say this in the discord channel I share with some friends about an hour ago:

> whew boys, i'm arguing on like 87 fronts on hn simultaneously

> rly stirred up a hornets nest

> told them using ad blockers was stealing

> not even sure if i believe it, but makes for a good tussle

And I am also a pretty religious reader of slate star codex :).

[TeMPOraL]

Hah :).

> And I am also a pretty religious reader of slate star codex :).

So am I!

> > not even sure if i believe it, but makes for a good tussle

So are you now more, or less sure if you believe it?

[darawk]

> So are you now more, or less sure if you believe it?

Haha well....I'm not sure i'm any closer to an answer, other than of course that the label 'theft' is slippery and labeling something "theft" or "not theft" is kind of meaningless [0] (except insofar as the whole prison thing is concerned - it's kind of meaningful there). It is theft in the sense that something has been taken from someone under conditions other than those they specified. It is not theft in the sense that maybe they didn't really specify it clearly, or maybe society has decided to limit the media within which such terms may be specified? But why did we decide to do that? It all seems a little arbitrary, and really kind of boils down to the way certain mediums make people "feel". People (myself included) "feel" like digitally copying something is not the same as taking a physical object. Partly maybe because digital goods are non-rivalrous? I'm not sure.

There is actually a physical world example of this exact sort of thing: time share presentations. They often will give you some reward like a trip for sitting through their presentation. The dynamics are a little different, because you can't get the reward without sitting through the presentation. But what's really going on there? Is it the physical gating mechanism that gives it moral force? If they said "On the honor system, don't take any free meal coupons unless you watch the whole presentation", does that change the moral dynamics of the situation? I think the answer is probably no, but i'll tell you that it makes me personally a whole lot more likely to skip the presentation :p.

[0] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-mad...

[danShumway]

In your scarf example, you gave me the scarf after you gave me the terms.

Let me flip it on you. Let's say you bake me a cake and give it to me. The following week you say, "Hey, you need to go to the store and pick up some cough medicine for me, because I gave you that cake." If I then refuse, would it be valid for you to claim I stole your cake?

In your scarf example, I also probably indicated to you that I would accept those terms. Suppose that I told you, upfront, before you gave me the scarf, "No, I'm not going to pick up cough medicine for you, period. If you hand me this scarf, I'm still not going to the store."

If you still handed the scarf to me after I made it clear I wasn't going to the store and made no effort to take it from you by force, could you claim that I stole from you?

Funnily enough, the second scenario is not entirely fictional. I remember a particularly scummy practice that businesses used to do when I was growing up where they'd mail you an unsolicited physical item and then demand payment or return of the item.

I don't remember if it was illegal at the time or if it became illegal later, but the basic gist was "if you post something to another person in the mail, you can't later demand that they send it back to you or pay you."

On the modern web, I connect to the NYT to read some text, and they return a bunch of unsolicited code that I never agreed to request. The idea that I have the obligation to run code that I never requested from the server (literally, my ad blocker prevents the request from being made) when I never agreed to any terms surrounding that code is... crazy to me. In any other domain we would call that crazy.

[darawk]

> In your scarf example, you gave me the scarf after you gave me the terms.

I didn't intend that interpretation. However, if you believe that's the crux of our disagreement, then we in fact do not disagree. If a site does not make clear its expectations, then there's no theft. If they do, then there is. And certainly you cannot be expected to turn off your adblocker before seeing those terms - that's silly. Uninformed consent is not consent. But once you are informed, to proceed with content consumption without abiding the clearly stated terms is theft.

[shkkmo]

You must get somebody to agree to the terms, not just state them.

If you say "I'll give you this scarf if you go to the store for me" and then drape it over my shoulder, I haven't broken any agreement or stolen anything if i walk away. You gave me your scarf without any agreement on my part and will have a hard time enforcing that agreement in court.

Similarly, I suspect that the "by using this site you agree to..." declaration that is widely used has fairly limited legal efficacy precisely due the the lack of explicit agreement.

Even if I do agree to your terms, if I don't go the store it STILL isn't theft. I am merely in breach of contract and you will have to go to court to get them to force me to return the scarf you gave to me.

[darawk]

> Similarly, I suspect that the "by using this site you agree to..." declaration that is widely used has fairly limited legal efficacy precisely due the the lack of explicit agreement.

The case i'm considering here is one of explicit agreement. E.g. checking a checkbox.

> Even if I do agree to your terms, if I don't go the store it STILL isn't theft. I am merely in breach of contract and you will have to go to court to get them to force me to return the scarf you gave to me.

Breach of contract and theft are often the same thing. I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing here.

[TheCoelacanth]

> The case i'm considering here is one of explicit agreement. E.g. checking a checkbox.

So a fictional case? No site I have ever seen explicitly asks you to agree to view its ads.