> If the LinkedIn decision stands, such impediments may be blocked by courts. That's probably not a good outcome.
Nope, I think you have it totally incorrect. The issue isn't whether it can be illegal to put technology impediments in place -- that isn't a claim in this case.
The issue is potentially whether you can charge someone with a felony for working around the impediments you put in place. (i'm not totally sure if that is relevant in this case?) Or even more so, if you can charge someone with a felony for hacking for just doing something you politely asked them not to do.
But there is nothing at stake here that could possibly make it illegal to put technological impediments like rate-limiting or CAPTCHA's in place. If I'm wrong, please direct me to the details of where/why. But that was definitely not at stake in Van Buren v. US, which is what the Supreme Court says prompted the remit for a re-hearing. The CFAA is about a felony crime of unauthorized access; nothing in it, decided either way, can make it a crime (or "blocked by courts") to put technological impediments in place.
But overall, OP article is doing a very poor job of explaining either the facts or law of this case, so there's a lot I'm not sure about from just this write-up and what else I've been able to lazily google alone.
If anyone has a better article explaining the relevant facts and law in dispute here, I'm still interested.
Nope, I think you have it totally incorrect. The issue isn't whether it can be illegal to put technology impediments in place -- that isn't a claim in this case.
The issue is potentially whether you can charge someone with a felony for working around the impediments you put in place. (i'm not totally sure if that is relevant in this case?) Or even more so, if you can charge someone with a felony for hacking for just doing something you politely asked them not to do.
But there is nothing at stake here that could possibly make it illegal to put technological impediments like rate-limiting or CAPTCHA's in place. If I'm wrong, please direct me to the details of where/why. But that was definitely not at stake in Van Buren v. US, which is what the Supreme Court says prompted the remit for a re-hearing. The CFAA is about a felony crime of unauthorized access; nothing in it, decided either way, can make it a crime (or "blocked by courts") to put technological impediments in place.
But overall, OP article is doing a very poor job of explaining either the facts or law of this case, so there's a lot I'm not sure about from just this write-up and what else I've been able to lazily google alone.
If anyone has a better article explaining the relevant facts and law in dispute here, I'm still interested.