Court rules that IP cloaking to access blocked sites violates law
Disguising an IP address or using a proxy server to visit Web sites you've been banished from is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer for the Northern District of California issued the ruling Friday in a copyright infringement lawsuit between Craigslist and data harvester 3Taps. The dispute began in July 2012 when Craigslist sent a cease-and-desist letter to apartment listing app PadMapper, claiming it was violating the site's terms of service by scraping apartment rental information from the online classifieds site.
PadMapper complied and took the listings down before 3Taps provided a workaround. Craigslist soon filed a copyright claim against 3Taps and PadMapper, which displays and links listings, found on Craigslist and other services, on a Google map. 3Taps countersued, claiming that Craigslist was trying to create a monopoly by squeezing out competition in the growing market.
