X Corp. sued on the usual so-called "tech" company claims: violating ToS and CFAA.

As has been discussed many times on HN, these ToS and CFAA threats are often bogus. The so-called "tech" companies operate on the principles of fear and intimidation, not on the basis that precedent is on their side. It isn't, because generally the precedent does not exist. Almost invariably they settle these disputes out of court. Perhaps it is because they are afraid to go to trial. Whether that's true or not, by keeping these issues away from judges and juries the issues are never resolved. And that plays in favour of the so-called "tech" companies, not www users.

From what I have seen some HN commenters really want to believe in the power of website ToS and CFAA to control access to public information. Lawyers employed or retained by so-called "tech" companies will reassure them that ToS are enforceable so they can keep collecting salaries and fees for drafting them. They will happily file dubious suits like this one to keep that pay coming from cash cow so-called "tech" companies. But how often are ToS and CFAA enforced (cf. threatened). How often is enforcement (cf. threat of enforcement) successful. How often are these claims actually tested and decided upon by judges and juries. Do HN commenter beliefs about using ToS and the CFAA to stop so-called "web scraping" match reality. Let the reader decide.

CCDH Motion to Dismiss:

https://ia802708.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4...

"Conspicuously, X Corp. has not asserted a defamation claim - understandably so, since it cannot allege that the CCDH Defendants said anything knowingly false, nor does it wish to invite discovery on the truth about the content on its platform. Instead, X Corp. has ginned up baseless claims purporting to take issue with how the CCDH Defendants gathered data that formed the basis for their research and publications. Each theory is flimsier and more absurd than the last. More specifically, X Corp.s Amended Complaint asserts a claim for breach of contract against CCDH US (Count 1, claiming that CCDH US breached Twitters Terms of Service when it used Twitters own search function to collect publicly available information); a federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) claim against the CCDH Defendants and unnamed Doe Defendants who are supposedly their funders, supporters, and other entities (Count 2, asserting that the CCDH Defendants use of a data analytics platform called Brandwatch somehow amounted to a federal hacking violation); and tort claims for intentional interference with contractual relations and inducing breach of contract against the same Defendants (Counts 3 and 4, arising out of the Brandwatch data collection and its use in three CCDH reports)."

More on X's bogus arguments:

Amicus Brief from Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard

https://ia802708.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4...

Amicus Brief from ACLU

https://ia802708.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4...

Unrelated, but interesting document from CCDH on Twitter's "content creators":

https://ia802708.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4...

(Reasonable forseeability as to damages may be one problem with X's breach of contract claim but arguably the use of the claim itself is bogus.)