Robert Scoble and Facebook: Moral, Legal and Context
It’s been a few days since the debate erupted over Robert Scoble and his scraping of his 5000 or so facebook friends email addresses, names and birthdays and subsequent ban and reinstatement.
There are several parts of this debate, a moral/ethical one, a legal one, the issue of “walled gardens” and notion of the Social Graph with the legal one being especially expounded upon with regards to the EU. I will deal with the Ethical and Legal ones first and Further posts will deal with other issues.
The moral/ethical part of the debate and possibly what most people were concerned about is first, what is the type of information being scraped and second, what will it be used for. Now with regards to the actual information being scraped in this instance (and I’m sorry to disagree with it seems everyone I know about this here) but if you make a decision to make your email address and date of birth viewable to people you friend on Facebook you do so because that is information you either a) actively want those people to have or b) don’t mind if they have. It is very difficult in my view to make the arguement that it is any different from sending someone an email, except arguably stronger because you have gone beyond merely communicating with someone to actually asking them to be your friend and sharing your information with them. SO from that strictly moral/ethical perspective I don’t see anything objectionable in what Robert Scoble did.
From a legal standpoint it will be interesting to see this tested in the courts but here’s my take. Again the interepretation depends on a few things. If Robert Scoble wants the names and contact details of all of his friends off any service for his personal use, let’s get real folks, he is perfectly entitled to that. The important point here is that, as with the moral issue, he already has the info and could take it out manually if required, (a point he has made a few times) and that by sharing contact information, by definition people are looking to be contacted outside of facebook, otherwise what’s the point of doing that. The birthdays however are another issue, the reason it is different is because it is not contact information. For example the birthday information may be inaccurate, possibly even deliberately so, but as soon as it is removed by Robert Scoble it is personal information that is recorded electronically but is no longer controlled by the individual it relates to and might have an effect on their life in some way or another in the future. It is this type of information being scraped that people are most concerned about and it’s here that Scoble is on shaky ground. Plaxo’s scraper starts with your birthday but theoretically it could take what it wanted. If he had stuck to name and email addresses he would have a stronger case (so to speak).
It has also been at least implied that the context of the walled garden must be taken into account when looking at this problem. That is that the fact that people are aware that it is a walled garden and therefore rely on that as a means of security. I think that’s rubbish frankly. If you friended only one or two people they could easily email you directly and you wouldn’t be surprised by that. If you’re not friending someone because you want to be friends with them, then perhaps you should tell them that. Stop whinging
This is all assuming it is being used for personal use for Robert to maintain his social graph. If it were also taken by Robert or Plaxo and used as a way of generating business or for any other purpose then that is clearly ethically and legally wrong.
Tags: facebook, legal, moral, Robert Scoble, scobleizer, scraping