How has Scrapebox not been sued by Google???

[MarketerX]

Hey everyone, just a quick question. I have heard of a few bot makers that have been sued, the best example probably being TweetAttacks (and a few other bots) by Twitter. Also I believe there was a popular facebook bot about 2 years ago that was shut down by being sued.

So how has Scrapebox continued to survive, and even able to use PayPal as a payment processor for almost 6 years? Surely Google is well aware of Scrapebox, and you would think if any com pany had the power to shut someone down, it would be them. Even when you search for Scrapebox, you get Scrapebox.com as the number 1 result, they don't even slap the domain in their results at all.

So how have they managed to stay afloat since 2009, while others have been shut down? I am really curious about this so hopefully someone will have some insight.

 

[HelloInsomnia]

It's not like it hurts Google, it's just scraping information. I don't even think its illegal or anything but I'm no lawyer.

 

[koolbrian]

I don't understand what is the connection here between scrapebox and Google? The other piece of tools you are talking about directly focused on the websites who sued them, which was causing trouble for them as they found no suitable way to protect themselves from the fake accounts, profiles and posts. They had no other way but to sue them instead of trying to improve their algo for stopping these fakes which is a shame for them (just my opinion). Whereas major function of scrapebox is to post comments on individual blogs and I don't think there is any top company related to blogs, I hope you understand what I mean. The only use of Google in scrapebox is for searching, scraping search results, checking index, indexed links etc. which I think is not an issue for Google as they are meant to provide those services.

 

[MarketerX]

It's not like it hurts Google, it's just scraping information. I don't even think its illegal or anything but I'm no lawyer.

It costs them bandwidth and sometimes leads to massive hacks from people using it to scrape vulnerable scripts/websites, also they directly mention you can scrape Google on their sales page, which could be considered trademark infringement since scrapebox.com is a commercial website selling software. Lesser companies such as Twitter and Facebook have for awhile been suing bot makers, however sometimes they can't because the bot makers are out of US jurisdiction, which may be the case with Scrapebox.

Edit: Sorry for typos.

 

[MarketerX]

I don't understand what is the connection here between scrapebox and Google? The other piece of tools you are talking about directly focused on the websites who sued them, which was causing trouble for them as they found no suitable way to protect themselves from the fake accounts, profiles and posts. They had no other way but to sue them instead of trying to improve their algo for stopping these fakes which is a shame for them (just my opinion). Whereas major function of scrapebox is to post comments on individual blogs and I don't think there is any top company related to blogs, I hope you understand what I mean. The only use of Google in scrapebox is for searching, scraping search results, checking index, indexed links etc. which I think is not an issue for Google as they are meant to provide those services.

Scrapebox, in their marketing to sell their software (example: their landing page), directly mention you can use it to scrape Google (and therfore break Googles TOS). Similar to other bot makers that have been taken to court.

 

[HelloInsomnia]

Yeah bot those were more destructive bots, Tweet Attacks for example was used by thousands of people to spam Twitter probably used on hundreds of thousands or millions of spam accounts.

Scrapebox is scraping information and from what I know this is generally okay as long as you follow the websites TOS and robots.txt rules which I am sure Scrapebox breaks but that's about the bad things it really does.

Lots of resources are used to scrape the search engines, I really doubt they care..

And Scrapebox is not a US company btw, they are pretty far from here actually..

 

[Word Wizard]

Scrapebox, in their marketing to sell their software (example: their landing page), directly mention you can use it to scrape Google (and therfore break Googles TOS). Similar to other bot makers that have been taken to court.

Google TOS is not law

 

[MarketerX]

Google TOS is not law

But they can sue you if you break them. That's why they exist. They are similar to a contract.

 

[MarketerX]

Yeah bot those were more destructive bots, Tweet Attacks for example was used by thousands of people to spam Twitter probably used on hundreds of thousands or millions of spam accounts.

Scrapebox is scraping information and from what I know this is generally okay as long as you follow the websites TOS and robots.txt rules which I am sure Scrapebox breaks but that's about the bad things it really does.

Lots of resources are used to scrape the search engines, I really doubt they care..

And Scrapebox is not a US company btw, they are pretty far from here actually..

I guess you didn't catch my post above, Scrapebox can actually be used for extremely destructive purposes. Much more than TweetAttacks, as Google indexs vulnerable scripts and websites which someone with SB can harvest millions in a day using footprints to find pages that can be attacked, then proceed too hack all those websites. So there are seriously bad things you can do with ScrapeBox, and Google is very aware of this.

But let's be honest, most people just spam backlinks for their boner pill sites. Not use it for evil like the thing I mentioned above.

 

[cottonwolf]

Breaks their terms of service? And when google returns copyrighted breaking containing items whose terms and conditions are google breaking? or indexing your pictures and making it publicly downloadable? I believe they've already had a lot of cases involving copyright claims where they were most of the times held "innocent"

copyrights, terms of services,"rights", all the made of non-sense of humanity, sueing and being of afraid of sued are the most disgusting things in the world after the power elite. all this crap is made up to scare people into being submissive

Scrapebox, in their marketing to sell their software (example: their landing page), directly mention you can use it to scrape Google (and therfore break Googles TOS). Similar to other bot makers that have been taken to court.

 

[cottonwolf]

it's not scrapebox that does the hacking.. just as the knife manufacturer cannot be held responsible for the buyer's act for example if they stab somebody with said knife, scrapebox is a tool. its existence isn't illegal.

I guess you didn't catch my post above, Scrapebox can actually be used for extremely destructive purposes. Much more than TweetAttacks, as Google indexs vulnerable scripts and websites which someone with SB can harvest millions in a day using footprints to find pages that can be attacked, then proceed too hack all those websites. So there are seriously bad things you can do with ScrapeBox, and Google is very aware of this.

But let's be honest, most people just spam backlinks for their boner pill sites. Not use it for evil like the thing I mentioned above.

 

[MarketerX]

Breaks their terms of service? And when google returns copyrighted breaking containing items whose terms and conditions are google breaking? or indexing your pictures and making it publicly downloadable? I believe they've already had a lot of cases involving copyright claims where they were most of the times held "innocent"

copyrights, terms of services,"rights", all the made of non-sense of humanity, sueing and being of afraid of sued are the most disgusting things in the world after the power elite. all this crap is made up to scare people into being submissive

Google respects webmasters robots.txt file, so if they don't want Google to scrape them, they can indicate so. The same is not true for a program like Scrapebox. Legally, that's a big difference. But besides that, Google does not allow their website to be spidered by automated robots, doing so violates their Terms of Service, which you agree to by using their service. I am just telling it like it is.

My point is this...if Google really wanted to take down Scrapebox (and they must, since they do ban certain footprints, and if you don't set a delay, IP bans and captchas.), why haven't they sued them? Or atleast remove their landing page from their index. (This would take them 2 seconds) They could if they really wanted too...unless Scrapebox is not made by a US company or citizen. Even then, they could slap the domain in their results. But they haven't touched it.

 

[cottonwolf]

why haven't they sued them? Or atleast remove their landing page from their index. (This would take them 2 seconds) They could if they really wanted too...unless Scrapebox is not made by a US company or citizen. Even then, they could slap the domain in their results. But they haven't touched it.

They have better things to do, like deindexing your site and scaring people into buying adwords. More profitable than taking down a relatively small company. Even if they took SB down, there'd be a whole lot of new players on the market, so wouldnt make a difference

 

[MarketerX]

it's not scrapebox that does the hacking.. just as the knife manufacturer cannot be held responsible for the buyer's act for example if they stab somebody with said knife, scrapebox is a tool. its existence isn't illegal.

I understand it is not Scrapebox doing the hacking, which is the most unethical/illegal use of Scrapebox, but believe me, people do it. And without SB, they couldn't hit 1/10000 of the sites that they do in 1 round.

Regardless, there is no denying that SB breaks Googles TOS, which means you can be sued (and the creators).

And that's not even including the trademark infringement on their landing page.

 

[MarketerX]

They have better things to do, like deindexing your site and scaring people into buying adwords. More profitable than taking down a relatively small company. Even if they took SB down, there'd be a whole lot of new players on the market, so wouldnt make a difference

I'd say SB is the most profitable IM bot of all time, I'd imagine they've made over a million bucks, yet small bots like TweetAttacks and a few Facebook bots that probably made 1/10th of SB got sued for huge amounts.

I am just amazed the most powerful and profitable bot hasn't suffered the same fate.

 

[MarketerX]

They have better things to do, like deindexing your site and scaring people into buying adwords. More profitable than taking down a relatively small company. Even if they took SB down, there'd be a whole lot of new players on the market, so wouldnt make a difference

If they have better things to do, why do they bother to ban certain footprints? Obviously they are trying to frustrate people scraping their site, which they can detect even by the search queries you send. So if they care enough to create the complex algorithms to do that, why not go after the bot makers?

 

[pxoxrxn]

I don't think big companies like Google are out looking for people to sue. You would have to cause significant damage to them before they feel the need to use the law. Its not just the law fees that you need to think about.

 

[cottonwolf]

You can always tweet mr matt your ideas if you feel scrapebox needs to be sued. they are quite trigger happy ruining someone else's work. no doubt the seo community would talk about you and this for years, so you could get some media exposure this way and profit, so why not

If they have better things to do, why do they bother to ban certain footprints? Obviously they are trying to frustrate people scraping their site, which they can detect even by the search queries you send. So if they care enough to create the complex algorithms to do that, why not go after the bot makers?

 

[MarketerX]

I don't think big companies like Google are out looking for people to sue. You would have to cause significant damage to them before they feel the need to use the law. Its not just the law fees that you need to think about.

Facebook and Twitter have both sued both bot makers and bot operators. One FB spammer got sued for like 700 million dollars, damages calculated for each message he sent, like $500, obviously he went bankrupt and will never pay, but they won their lawsuit. And it was against a Canadian.

 

[Word Wizard]

Ask them yourself http://www.google.com/contact/

I don't think breaking TOS is grounds for lawsuit in and of itself