@ophiocephalic So like.
On the first read, EFF's position seems reasonable.
On the second read (and reading the summary of the bill they're referring to), I'm reading this:

"Section 1752 provides that it shall be a violation of this article for
any person to deploy a stealth crawler in a manner that would damage,
impair or burden the operation of a covered news site or otherwise cause
a news site economic harm."

So if you just download an page every 10 seconds, it'd be very hard to prove harm.

@ophiocephalic@kolektiva.social these are very legitimate concerns by the EFF about user privacy and open access to information, I think casting them as evil villains for... literally maintaining the same ethical and moral positions they've had for 20 years is a bit sad and shitty tbqh

> Another working group, called Web Bot Auth, is pursuing efforts to protect sites from overly-aggressive bots that strain website resources—a positive goal that could meaningfully improve the internet in the AI era. But Web Bot Auth is simultaneously pursuing a much more dangerous path as well: standards changes that would enable sites to cryptographically identify bots so that they can more easily block anyone they wish—not just “bad” actors, but competitors, dissidents, or anyone who hasn’t paid for the right to access sites using automated tools.

These things are not entirely unfounded concerns, they go on to explain why forcing identification of automated scrapers on the web would be socially harmful too, and the entire time remain sympathetic to the concerns of site owners who want more control over scraping still.

They're clearly advocating for a balance in these things, rather than modifying standards in ways that could monetize and restrict the internet permanently, which they state several times.

> Websites may have legitimate reasons to worry about AI’s impacts on their traffic and advertising revenue, but those reasons must be weighed against the benefits of the open web. These proposals would effectively give website operators veto power over a wide range of important uses—from the investigations and archival works described above to accessibility tools for people with disabilities, to research efforts aimed at holding governments accountable.

> That is why we are fighting back against these threats to open access.

@ophiocephalic@kolektiva.social these are very legitimate concerns by the EFF about user privacy and open access to information, I think casting them as evil villains for... literally maintaining the same ethical and moral positions they've had for 20 years is a bit sad and shitty tbqh

> Another working group, called Web Bot Auth, is pursuing efforts to protect sites from overly-aggressive bots that strain website resources—a positive goal that could meaningfully improve the internet in the AI era. But Web Bot Auth is simultaneously pursuing a much more dangerous path as well: standards changes that would enable sites to cryptographically identify bots so that they can more easily block anyone they wish—not just “bad” actors, but competitors, dissidents, or anyone who hasn’t paid for the right to access sites using automated tools.

These things are not entirely unfounded concerns, they go on to explain why forcing identification of automated scrapers on the web would be socially harmful too, and the entire time remain sympathetic to the concerns of site owners who want more control over scraping still.

They're clearly advocating for a balance in these things, rather than modifying standards in ways that could monetize and restrict the internet permanently, which they state several times.

> Websites may have legitimate reasons to worry about AI’s impacts on their traffic and advertising revenue, but those reasons must be weighed against the benefits of the open web. These proposals would effectively give website operators veto power over a wide range of important uses—from the investigations and archival works described above to accessibility tools for people with disabilities, to research efforts aimed at holding governments accountable.

> That is why we are fighting back against these threats to open access.

@ophiocephalic thank you! so much “other” information i didn’t know