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0 pointsmschuster919y ago0 comments

> As far as I can tell the only thing that enforces this is what should amount to an antitrust level of collusion between the mega-companies to restrict access to products (via services such as the Apple App Store) that do things that the other mega-companies dislike

Actually, at least in the US you could be having legal problems... you're circumventing access controls, which may or may not be a "hacking crime". Also, by using the Twitter API you consent to its Terms and Conditions, so they have legal grounds to sue you (for example via trademark law; you most likely will advertise that your app supports Twitter login, but then Twitter can sue you as you advertise Twitter compatibility while violating their T&C).

It's IIRC never been tested in court so it remains an effective FUD, even without the Apple/Google store banhammer.

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saurik9y ago· 1 in thread

Where would someone even see these terms of service unless they have already bought into the fiction? The terms of service on usage of the official Twitter client could apply (saying you can't reverse engineer it), but if you are reverse engineering something for straightforward interoperability there is a lot of precedent, including for extremely similar services (such as the AOL Instant Messenger Client); I think they would be hard pressed to do anything more than ban you, just you personally, from Twitter.

mschuster91OP9y ago

It's the US government I'd be afraid of. Other governments even extradite people like Kim Schmitz into the US, who never even set foot into the US, for copyright infringement. Their justification is "he had used US servers".

Who says that this cannot be done with a 3rd party client developer? The precedent is there, circumstances may be seen similar, all it needs is a clueless DA and judge and boom you have a load of problems on your head.

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