Eye on Scoble
January 3rd, 2008 by EyeOnWinerSince “data portability” is one of Dave’s big issues and Scoble is so firmly attached to his backside 99% of the time (Should Maryam be worried?), this seems like decent fit for Ye Olde Blogge
Scoble violated a contract with a service provider and had his service interrupted. Someone call the New York Times!
I love seeing nerds get their various underwears in a bunch over stuff like this. Facebook has some rules, one of them is that you can’t scrape their pages. Scoble broke the rule (and stupidly admits to it on his blog) and now he’s throwing a tantrum because he has to face the consequences.
Listen, I want companies to give us easy access to our data as much as the next guy, but there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way. This isn’t women’s suffrage. It’s not segregation. It’s not the holocaust.
This isn’t an issue that’s so important and vital that it must be fixed immediately and through any means necessary.
This is just a bunch of adults acting like children, and using big, loaded words to defend themselves.
Here are some facts:
- Scoble agreed to the TOS when he signed up for facebook.
- He’s savvy. He knows that such contracts exist, how to find them, and what they usually contain.
- He knowingly and intentionally broke the rules, fully aware of what the consequences could be.
- He got caught, and now hopes to escape taking responsibility for his actions by making a big stink on his blog.
I don’t like the business practice of locking up user-generated content. I want it to stop. But the right way to do that is by not patronizing the companies who lock you in. Don’t use Facebook, don’t use Netflix, don’t use … well … 95% of web services out there today.
Facebook is a business that is offering you their services for zero dollars, in exchange for your agreement with a few terms and conditions. That’s the arrangement that all facebook members have agreed to, and they need to abide by it or take their ball and go home.
If Scoble stopped paying his electric bill, would all of the same people be up in arms when his lights got shut off?
It’s the same thing.
Tags: Data Portability, Facebook, Scoble
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Considering the trajectory of Scoble’s career since leaving Microsoft, we might get an answer to your question.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I love scaping useful info from websites and many can detect interactions that exceed the typical patterns of a browser. When automation is detected many sites lock your account.
It sucks. Apparently, Scoble was beta testing an import feature for Plaxo. Facebook just gave Plaxo and huge free PR event.
The trick for Plaxo will be to make the interactions run at the speed of a user “clicking” through the contact info. It will take more time to run but the import feature will work.
You can own a customer for a while but they often just rebel and FaceBook will have to compete. Scoble was just the first of many users trying to extract their contact info. The issues will get lost in the blog storm. Go figure.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I don’t understand is how any reasonable person can side with Scoble here.
Call me when someone breaks a contract with you and claims they have some sort of inherent, moral right to do it.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Speaking of scripting… I wanted the FlckrFan AP Photo Feed for my Windows PC.
I was able to find the feed link:
http://static.flickrfan.org/ap/rss.xml But Google Screen Saver doesn’t see it as a valid “Photo Feed”. So, I started scripting. The file the URL gives you has “Enclosures” for about 200 AP Photos. I extracted the photo URLs and dpownloaded the images using the links.
I noticed the photos are named sequentially and are found in “month/day/” folders on Dave’s server: static.flickrfan.org. I scripted the previous photo links and was able to download a collection of 1,400 AP photos and point Google Screensaver at the download folder.
Where there’s a will… would Dave approve of me getting the photos without using his tool? I also have a Mac running and was going to oopy the photos to a DVD before I started hacking on the PC. So, the PC is a “back-up” for the Mac downloads, in a sense.
Does anyone think that Dave’s access and sharing of the AP photos is consistent with the uses AP intended when they allow him access? Maybe they approve but somehow I doubt they expected hundreds of copies of the images to be downloaded without any statement of license restriction.
Dave gets away with shit many would be sued for… He’s only doing it for the public good but still. Is there an invoice in the mail? (Number of users * 200 photos * HDTV’s) or some such financial nonsense. The server has the download data. Is Dave picking up the tab or does AP get the idea of making money because of the internet and NOT from the internet. That’s an idea most old school media companies just don’t get at all.
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
It’s easy enough to find out. I’ll call the AP tomorrow and see what they say. Dave could be looking at millions of dollars in damages in a copyright infringement suit if not.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Dave’s application can download a bug fix and delete the images.
But the “cool” feature of the app is the quality of those images. They don’t come from Flickr.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Many of Dave innovations are hacks to re-purpose old media’s content. Like his newsriver of NY Times “mobile” pages. He subscribed to the servic and then hacked another “portal” to the content.
He just gets away with anything he can hack. Amazing. The NY Times techies actually met with him.
Usually there’s no real “business” that emerges from these hacks but he keeps pushing them out as innovative uses of the web.
With all networking the hard part is doing something cool, legal and sustainable. Dave gets “cool” but the details escape him.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Downloading the “fix” wouldn’t really save him from liability. The damage is done - there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. Besides, I’ve turned the app off, but I still have those images… to say nothing of the nightly backups I do… somewhere I have every image the thing downloaded.
I have a feeling that the AP is going to be unhappy with the implementation, even if they agreed with the idea in theory.
January 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Plaxo has been in trouble several times for spamming. Their basic method is to grab data from any available source (like your computer’s email address book) and spam them with an invitation in your name to join Plaxo. Scoble said that 1800 of his 5000 Facebook friends were already in Plaxo. That means his Plaxo data scrape would have resulted in 3200 spams from Plaxo. Facebook is doing the right thing to restrict data scraping bots that will only result in spam and irritation for Facebook users. Some people see any online service as a resource for spamming and other evils.