Comment by diggan
2 days ago
> You're on one persons property to access other people's stuff who pay to be there.
I see it more like I'm knocking on people's doors (issuing GET requests with my web browser) and people open their door for me (the server responds with something) or not. If you don't wanna open the door, fine you do you, but if you do open the door, I'm gonna assume it was on purpose as I'm not trying to be malicious, I'm just a user with a browser.
> AI bots have been asked to leave. But, since they own the mall too, the store owners are more than a little screwed.
I don't understand what you mean with this, what is the mall here, are you're saying that people have websites hosted at OpenAI et al? I'm not sure how the "mall owner" and the people running the AI bots are the same owners.
First, the mall is the internet as a whole- you're going to have to pay to be there (entrance is free, getting there is not), then you use their property to get to private businesses that have leased space at the mall.
And finally: https://www.techspot.com/news/105769-meta-reportedly-plannin...
The internet runs on backhaul. A LOT of backhaul is now owned by FAANG. Along with that, most those companies can financially ruin any business simply by banning them from the platform. So, the companies use their backhaul fiber and peering agreements to crawl everybody else. And nobody says anything because of "The Implication" that if you sue under Computer fraud and abuse Act (among others) they'll just wholesale ban you.
A "door to door" analogy doesn't work because sidewalks are generally considered "Public." The best I can tweak that analogy is a gated neighborhood and everybody has "no soliciting" signs. (NB: at least in my area, soliciting when theres a no-soliciting sign is an actual crime, on top of being trespassing)
making an HTTP GET request to an IP and port over the public internet, and getting a response back, is an interaction defined in a technical context, which has its own definitions for concepts like public/private.
stuff like licenses.txt or robots.txt exist in totally separate context, which has a totally separate set of definitions for concepts like public/private.
can't really conflate context-specific concepts like public/private, over multiple and incompatible contexts like technical/legal
the claim that "a lot of backhaul is now owned by FAANG" is obviously untrue at a basic technical level. the broader argument is cynical, unfalsifiable, and uninteresting.