This is called "growth hacking".
an unpublished api is not the same thing. I think there needs to be more clarification on this, but if its just an unpublished api they've done nothing wrong.
Not correct. A published, documented API comes with instructions on how the API can use used, and how the data can be used. Do not assume that an unpublished/undocumented API is the same, especially when republishing the data.
Agree and since it was undocumented there more than likely were no terms as to how it should be used.
Do you think if your friend who pretends to be all friendly with you in front of you went behind your back and talked behind your back for his own profit, you will still say "oh he did nothing wrong, there's nothing in the law that says you can't talk behind friend's back."?
My point is, doing whatever you can just because you can is not always the right thing regardless of its legality. It is an asshole behavior on my book to betray someone's trust regardless of whether it's legally ok to do so or not. An asshole is an asshole. Feel free to defend that asshole if you want. I'm just not on that boat.
I have tons of other analogy I would like to use but you'll probably try to make counter arguments about those little expressions instead of the real point so I will stop here.
If you really think walking into someone's room and taking a secret document on their desk without their permission and publicizing it to fuck them up so you can gain profit from it is NOT wrong, I have nothing more to say.
I just read through the original Medium post, and I can't really sympathize with any of you guys in this thread saying WeWork is the evil.
This guy hacked into their private API (legal or not doesn't matter), and used that information to write a blog post, and at the bottom writes:
"About Thinknum Thinknum indexes alternative web data for thousands of companies, capturing relevant information for financial analysts to use in their investment process. Thinknum has hundreds of institutional clients across hedge funds, investment banks and corporations."
Basically here's how I see it: this guy wanted attention, so betrayed their business partner (WeWork) and used the private information to get traffic to his product. I can't imagine myself ever doing something like this. What did WeWork do to this guy that harmed him? Every company has difficult times. I'm sure WeWork guys wanted nothing more than to build an organization that helps these little guys, but if I were in their position I would feel extremely sad. They don't deserve to be thrown under the bus by someone they're in partnership with, whom they did nothing bad to.