Very! Google provides a way for you to opt out. This is not the case of "Oh, I went to their website and they sued us out of existence." This is more of a case of they were asked to not do something and they said fuck you I'll do it anyway. I don't like CFAA but I'd say these 3tap people failed at being nice to others.

Screw them.

Yes, I remember those discussions here in HN. The simple fact was they had built and entire product around someone else's data. They maintained an "f-you" attitude even after the cease and desists. Those companies got hammered because of their arrogance. They could have built a CL-killer but instead they built a CL-piggybacker but did so in a way that violated CL's terms of use.

By "somebody else's data" you mean the end users who list their properties on Craigslist, right?

People on HN often complain about YC backed startups if they do morally questionable stuff (see for example any thread about that installer bundling startup whose name I can't recall right now). The HN community isn't as bad as you make it seem.

HN is critical of YC startups.

The only thing you can't do here is criticize Elon Musk.

Scribd and Quora get called on their bullshit all the time.

Dont forget the hubub over YC investing in that adware bundler company (InstallMonetizer), couldnt stop hearing about that for weeks[0]. I certainly think there is a trend towards being positive towards YC properties on HN (surprise!) but if they do something bad they will be excoriated just like the rest.

[0]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130115/17343321692/why-a...

Reddit too, given yesterday's news.

Yes. And there are tons of other startups and probably also YC companies involved in heavy scraping, aggregating and selling that information to other folks.