MediaFire: controlling your browser?
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- It’s your computer and it’s no one’s busness but yours what you choose to do with web pages you visit.
But according to the EFF’s Fred von Lohmann, free file hosting provider MediaFire wouldn’t agree with that.
It seems to think when you follow a link to download a file from its service, “it has the right to control your browser,” he says, citing it as yet another example of a web site owner forgetting this fundamental reality.
“This latest spat involves SkipScreen, a Firefox plug-in that automates the process of downloading from free hosting sites like RapidShare, zShare, MegaUpload, and others (including, until recently, MediaFire),” says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), going on »»»
Some of these ad-supported download sites try to force downloaders to sit through a “waiting period” before revealing the actual download link— a “feature” that these sites doubtless tout to advertisers in order to get premium ad rates. SkipScreen automates this waiting-and-clicking for you. Simply put, it does nothing you couldn’t accomplish just as well by hiring a human to browse for you.
MediaFire has responded by sending a lawyer letter to Mozilla, which hosts the SkipScreen plug-in, along with thousands of other Firefox add-ons.
EFF has taken SkipScreen’s creators as clients, and has sent a letter to Mozilla explaining why MediaFire doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Here’s the short version: it’s my browser, and I can ignore your ads if I want to.
MediaFire’s arguments to the contrary are entirely misguided.
First, they suggest that SkipScreen somehow lets users “steal bandwidth.” That’s wrong on the facts: SkipScreen just automates the exact process that the user would otherwise have to do themselves in order download a file. No “extra downloads,” no additional bandwidth for MediaFire.
Second, MediaFire argues that the use of SkipScreen violates MediaFire’s “acceptable use policy.” That’s wrong on the law: users who follow a link to a MediaFire download never click-through or otherwise agree to any “acceptable use policy,” so there’s no contract here that prohibits a user from using whatever browser she likes (including whatever plug-ins she likes) to download a file.
Sure, MediaFire probably would prefer that we all sit, transfixed, while they display ads for us, just like certain Hollywood executives wish we would never leave the couch or hit FFWD when commercials run during our favorite TV shows, and certain websites wish they could ban Firefox ad-blockers.
“Fortunately,” von Lohmann says, “there’s nothing in the law that says that by simply visiting a website, I give up the right to control my desktop.”
Mozilla says it’ll continue to support SkipScreen in its add-on library, he adds.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
October, 2009
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October 13th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Mediafire doesn’t make you wait and gives you the link immediately. Instead of “skipping” the waiting like Skipscreen says it does on its website, its really just replacing the ads with its own ads. Seems kind of blackhat to me.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:30 am
This is the same idiotic reasoning (or lack thereof) that is behind the claims that using Adblock Plus is somehow stealing revenue from site owners.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Thanks MediaFire! Without all the press attention, I would have never heard of SkipScreen. I’ll try it out next chance I get.
And if SkipScreen has ads, what does that matter? I’ll be browsing on a different tab anyway and won’t see them.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
I second that Eric. I installed it right after I read the story.
October 14th, 2009 at 2:03 am
I’m with Eric. Are they going to also sue Mozilla and other browser makers for tabbed browsing? Because I don’t sit through the wait period, not when I can surf other sites while I wait. Thanks to MediaFire I now know about SkipScreen and will give it a try.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:19 am
You all do know that there are stand-alone programs dedicated to automating the download process from these sites, right? With the best of them, you can feed them a bunch of assorted links and they will handle the waiting, the captchas, will download from multiple services at once, etc.
Look up J-Downloader.