simplesimpl3

Great comment. "trying to rationalize..." I think that really says it all. Human nature indeed.

It's certainly not rational.

Yeah, it would be futile for CL to go after Padmapper, so they are going after 3Taps. Why would they be more worried about 3Taps? Because anyone can do what 3Taps is doing. Anyone can pull CL data from a search engine cache like 3Taps does. There's no need to go to CL.

But one thing we know, if you look at the precedent, is that you can't sue Google and win. You either let them copy your site or opt out and lose the traffic. So what can you do?

Sue Google users! As far as I'm concerned, that's all 3Taps is. They are just aggregating what they pull from the cache.

Is 3Taps different from Google simply because they show a map?

Maybe CL should have terms for their general website that say data can be scraped and cached but that it must appear in the cache either exactly as it does on CL, or with some things missing, but not with anything added (e.g. a map).

Seconded.

Certainly this issue has come up before. Maybe the fact there is no precedent tells us something? Who would benefit from keeping the issue undecided?

People should post their cease and desist letters from CL so others can see. I doubt you were the only person to receive one. Sometime when something doesn't seem right, it's because it isn't.

That was CL's big mistake. These sort of unreasonable licensing terms that users never read are exactly the kind courts refuse to enforce.

Maybe you just want CL to win? That's different from whether CL has a real chance of winning. This case is unlikely to go to trial. That's because CL has a lot to lose and 3Taps has very little to lose. Some believe the reason there are few lawsuits on these issues that are not settled out of court is because websites like CL are afraid of having a court decide on them. Why would they want to avoid having a court decide?