[johnnyfaehell]

>This isn't a case of users knowingly using a tool to scrape data for their own use, the users installing the extension are, at most, mules, for the extension makers.

I feel it's reasonable for the average person to figure that a plugin that pays them for using Facebook and Twitter is paying for the data generated from those sessions. There is already a case with LinkedIn where courts are allowing data scraping even though LinkedIn disallows it and forced LinkedIn to stop blocking it.

I feel like this is a case Facebook should lose. Facebook wants complete ownership of the data from Facebook for marketing purposes because obviously if they're the only ones that have the data they have a monopoly. But preventing others from gathering competing data seems to be a breach of Antitrust. And Facebook execs will openly admit this is what they're doing. They've shut down multiple influencer related companies who completely backed down from a cease and desist from Facebook. And they're refusing to allow anyone to grant influencer agencies access to their data. This is Facebook telling people who they can give their data to. As well as Facebook saying companies can't scrape public information and then sell the statistics. And statistics can't be copyrighted.

[henryfjordan]

> courts are allowing data scraping even though LinkedIn disallows it and forced LinkedIn to stop blocking it

Courts only said "If your server responds to an unauthenticated GET request, that's on you". Linkedin is free to stop providing that data or move it behind a login wall, they just don't want to because it helps them with SEO. Contrast that with these plugins that are absolutely accessing data behind the user's login.

Also with regards to the antitrust assertions you make, Facebook is absolutely not required to share their data with anyone. People give their data to FB, FB can do what they want with it (as long as it's within the ToS). Facebook can't stop me from also giving my data to someone else outside the platform, but they do not have to facilitate that process in any way.

[johnnyfaehell]

> Courts only said "If your server responds to an unauthenticated GET request, that's on you". Linkedin is free to stop providing that data or move it behind a login wall, they just don't want to because it helps them with SEO. Contrast that with these plugins that are absolutely accessing data behind the user's login.

Yes, exactly. Basically saying if LinkedIn was providing the data they couldn't block the data for specific people. In contrast, these plugins are collecting data that someone has chosen to make available to them. This is Facebook attempting to stop people from giving data to their competitors. This is anti-competitive. Overall the LinkedIn case said that if the user made that data available then that is on them. Not that it was an unauthenticated request, but that the data was made public and there was no attempt to bypass any privacy filters.

> Also with regards to the antitrust assertions you make, Facebook is absolutely not required to share their data with anyone. People give their data to FB, FB can do what they want with it (as long as it's within the ToS). Facebook can't stop me from also giving my data to someone else outside the platform, but they do not have to facilitate that process in any way.

One of Facebook's services is to provide that data to other services so you can use those services with that data. Saying no you can't share that data and not provide you that data in export is well, anti-competitive. This is saying "No, we don't want you to give those people that data." This is anti-competitiveness. Suing companies and preventing them from competing is predatory. You make claims that Facebook doesn't have to do these things, I feel like Facebook should be forced to allow these things. Just like we force Facebook to do other things like delete user data or make user data available (which it actually isn't doing completely last time I checked because you can't export your data and then have the exact same data on your own system.)

[reaperducer]

I feel it's reasonable for the average person to figure that a plugin that pays them for using Facebook and Twitter is paying for the data generated from those sessions.

I suspect that, to date, you've mostly met above-average people.

The average person, in my experience, has no such expectation or understanding. All they know is "free money!"

[johnnyfaehell]

Luckily, I believe the legal standard may be a reasonable person would understood it. :)