You Are A Criminal

If you are American it is possible that by violating the Terms of Service of a website (which constantly change without warning) that you are a criminal. With that in mind, here are my Terms of Service: By visiting this website you are exceeding your authorized access. Therefore you are a criminal.

Of course this is a slight exageration, yet in practice the CFAA is unclear and as interpreted would make the Terms of Service of a website an amendment to current law for the user of a website. For example if a website says that you must be over 18 to view the content, then by doing so at the age of 17 you are breaking US law, not just the terms.

With that in mind the terms could contain anything, there's no reason to dismiss absurd terms which may regulate how you may view the site, for example the terms could state that using Ad-Block is forbidden, or even using certain browsers why not. Facebook (and many others) state that you should never give your password to anyone, by doing so you could be found guilty of breaking the law.

I think the terms should remain a private agreement and should simply allow the website owner to deny access/service and/or delete posts from a user, why not. However considering the Terms as an amendment to the law is so insane it's insane.

Further reading:

• Are You A Teenager Who Reads News Online? According to the Justice Department, You May Be a Criminal
• Rebooting Computer Crime Law Part 1: No Prison Time For Violating Terms of Service
• Take Action via EFF (for Americans mostly I guess)
• Fix the CFAA (another link to an EFF site)