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Comment by dingo_bat | Hacker News Reader

So if I just visit twitter without logging in, do I have to abide by their ToS?

You may not do any of the following while accessing or using the Services: (i) access, tamper with, or use non-public areas of the Services, Twitter’s computer systems, or the technical delivery systems of Twitter’s providers; (ii) probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of any system or network or breach or circumvent any security or authentication measures; (iii) access or search or attempt to access or search the Services by any means (automated or otherwise) other than through our currently available, published interfaces that are provided by Twitter (and only pursuant to the applicable terms and conditions), unless you have been specifically allowed to do so in a separate agreement with Twitter (NOTE: crawling the Services is permissible if done in accordance with the provisions of the robots.txt file, however, scraping the Services without the prior consent of Twitter is expressly prohibited); (iv) forge any TCP/IP packet header or any part of the header information in any email or posting, or in any way use the Services to send altered, deceptive or false source-identifying information; or (v) interfere with, or disrupt, (or attempt to do so), the access of any user, host or network, including, without limitation, sending a virus, overloading, flooding, spamming, mail-bombing the Services, or by scripting the creation of Content in such a manner as to interfere with or create an undue burden on the Services.

Relevant part: "You may not do any of the following while accessing or using the Services: (...) crawling the Services is permissible if done in accordance with the provisions of the robots.txt file, however, scraping the Services without the prior consent of Twitter is expressly prohibited"

But the thing is, I didn't read or agree to the ToS at all. It was never presented to me and content was presented on my screen when I visited twiiter.com, or followed a link. I am not bound by terms I did not agree to.

At least that is my layman logic. But we live in a world where ~50 page long EULAs exist, so layman logic may not be applicable in this case.

True. Consider also whether adding something like "Each request to this server constitutes agreement to a $50 fee which is selectively enforced at our discretion" would make a scraper liable when they didn't agree to the terms.

If the law truly agrees that acceptance of undisclosed terms is granted simply by virtue of access, it opens the door to rampant abuse.

Though, if you want to try the protecting yourself in a similar approach, add a header to every request in your browser that says "By responding to this request, you accept that I do NOT agree to your terms and you are willing to serve me anyway." At least in this case they would actually receive your terms with the request. I wish there was an RFC for this.

I'm guessing the word to pay attention to is "accessing". So I guess as long as you are accessing the site you are under ToS.

The way this works isn't that you do something against the TOS and then they try to sue you out of existence. The way it will work is that Twitter will notify you "Hey what you're doing is against our TOS". At which point you'll be aware and if you continue your actions you're now liable.

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