On 2023-09-20 at 16:50, Tom Browder wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 13:36 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Tom Browder (12023-09-20):
>>
>>> What if you used an equilavent script but increased and
>>> randomized time
>
> ...
>
>> We can try to exercise some common sense, in particular by
>> comparing to similar situations. For example, if you take something
>> that does not belong to you, but do it at night, when everybody is
>> sleeping and being very careful you do not make a step squeak or
>> break the laser beams, is it still stealing?
>
> I apologize. I was not referring to stealing, and I haven't read the
> details in the terms of use. What I should have asked was: "is a
> single query in the script okay?" If so, how much time would have to
> pass before the next query in order to adhere to the terms of
> service?
You'd have to refer to the TOS to be certain, but based on the way
they've been described here, it isn't a question of amount of time. It's
the fact that you're applying scripts and automation at all, vs. having
each search be individually triggered by (and, I suspect, the results
sent/shown to) a real-person user.
Yes, this is horrific in light of the fact that automation is what
computers are *for* - but it also makes sense from Google's likely
perspective, and it's entirely plausible that they might care enough to
try to detect even minimal amounts of automation.
In principle, it probably *would* be possible to script doing such a
thing in such a way that it would not be sufficiently distinguishable
from human access patterns for them to be able to tell. (Varying time
between accesses almost certainly would not do it; among possibly other
things, you'd need to specify the accessing program, etc., in a way that
is doable but not necessarily obvious.)
That said, you'd be taking a gamble that your ability to obfuscate such
things is better than Google's ability to detect it. Who would you
prefer to bet on in a competition like that?
--
The Wanderer
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw