If they did have permission from Amazon to violate the TOS, I hope they had a contract to do so with protections/compensation for early termination.
If not, the situation is not unlike how off label drug usage can be okay until the FDA tells you to stop. Once they change their minds, that's that.
The Amazon TOS says don't store and display our old prices
[1] http://camelcamelcamel.com/blog/how-our-price-checking-syste...
Generally speaking, graduate-level textbooks (which release new editions at a far slower pace) had the largest and most predictable margin. That said, I hated that fact, since I think textbooks are also the biggest racket in the education universe, and its one of the other reasons that I stopped.
Amazon collected their fees in both directions, so I always assumed that if they realized what I was doing, they had little incentive to care.
edit: This is the section that Amazon must be referring to
"You may store other Product Advertising Content that does not consist of images for caching purposes for up to 24 hours, but if you do so you must immediately thereafter refresh and re-display the Product Advertising Content"
[1] https://www.facebook.com/Camelcamelcamelcom-154220361288305/...
>Maybe there's another reason altogether.
That's what I'm thinking as well.
Whether other businesses have or haven't been slapped down is only a secondary question.If you are 100% reliant on another company you're entire existence depends on that relationship.
I can't imagine a massive Associates Program user like, say, Gizmodo, doesn't have some kind of internal connection.
The problem here only really exists in these silly other parasitical web-only businesses. Yes, if you track Amazon's prices and Amazon makes that harder then you'll be on trouble. So probably best to set up 20 or so companies/services in your spare time and not take any of them too seriously.
But Amazon can. They also pay a few months in arrears, so one day you may wake up to a form email that says essentially, "adios, and I'm keeping the money". In fairness, I believe all affiliate programs are like that.
My point is that most other companies are like that, and the difference is just the extent to which these parasitical "internet businesses" are coupled to their host.
They're not `keeping the money`, they're just not paying you stuff that's not covered by the contract, TOS etc.
It's not `without warning` by the same token; unless the warning they were expecting was to hear about other companies who play fast and loose with the rules getting caught first.
Amazon pays ~2 months after Affiliate fees are earned, so at any given time you may have 2 months of fees waiting to be paid. If today they decide that they're done with their affiliate relationship with you -- for good reason or for no reason -- they can (and do) close your account with no explanation, AND they keep those 2 months of fees you already earned legitimately with no recourse except your suing them (good luck with that).
It's a bit like being a commissioned salesperson, getting fired, and the company keeps all your pending commissions. Totally illegal in that context, but the Affiliate program is not an employer in that way. It still sucks just as much.
A lot of companies warn you if they think you're in violation of their TOS: internet providers, game companies, cell phone companies, on and on. I don't think it's unreasonable to use a 'strikes' system or provide an avenue for appeal.
The CFAA generally applies to any computer access, as the Commerce Clause has been interpreted as applying to completely intra-state transactions (ignoring the fact that most computer access crosses state lines, which would make it a federal issue anyway), and thus, effectively all computers attached to the internet are "protected computers". Even if you're able to prevail in the argument that the CFAA is not applicable, there are similarly-worded state statutes, and as mentioned, other issues may federal matters, like alleged copyright and trademark infringement (which is usually alleged in such cases).
The CFAA is somewhat grey so if you have a few hundred k or more to flush on your lawyers, go ahead, it's possible that you may win. For most people, it's not relevant, because they can't afford to go head-to-head against a major global corporate entity like Amazon. One of the main goals of such a company is to make the lawsuit as costly as possible for the opposing party, since they have infinity money and they know that their opponent likely doesn't.
If you're interested, there have been a handful of cases already litigated on the CFAA. The scrapers usually get smoked hard. Look up Ticketmaster v. RMG Technologies, Craigslist v. 3Taps, Register.com v. Verio, and Facebook v. Power Ventures to get started.
The lesson is that if you're doing something in violation of a partner's TOS and start to negatively effect their business, the partner is well within their rights to cut off access. Whether other businesses have or haven't been slapped down is only a secondary question.