Posts tagged with 'Computer Fraud and Abuse Act'

Can terms of service turn you into a criminal?

If you live in the United States, a warning: you may want to read the terms of service of the websites you use a little more carefully. That's because a government prosecutor in New Jersey is pursuing criminal charges against the operators of a company that used an automated process to purchase event tickets on Ticketmaster.com for resale.

The charges are being brought under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which was passed in 1986 with the purpose of cracking down on the unauthorized accessing of computers (read: hacking). In U.S. v. Lowson, the prosecutor seeks to extend the CFAA to cover the violation of the Ticketmaster.com terms of service, which forbids individuals and companies from accessing the website in an automated fashion.