Apps Using webView may cause your app to be suspended!

[Jack P]

I recently gets notification from Google saying that my app is suspended because my app illegally access public web-site and illegally use the web-site API.

They did not complain about the web-sites' contents since it's within authors legal rights, which are willingly to publicly publish their works. So the contents is not the legal issue here as far as I checked.

In my defense, I am willing to show and explain that my app, in the same way as many popular apps do, is using webView to open the web-site and inject javaScript to select options and simulate human interaction (click button) on the web-page to navigate the web in the background. But, so far there is no reply or action from google and left my app in suspended stage after my appeals.

In conclusion, by using webView, it would be illegal to access public web-site and interact with it. Google may use the same reason at any time for any application that use such component to interact with external/public web-sites if they so choose.

I am not a lawyer or working in that branch of occupation, so my question is that
- what is the different between any browser such Google Chrome VS webView component?
- And if using webView accessing public web-site is illegal, why not the browser?

I would appreciate, if any of fellow developer can help answer or clarify which part is actually illegal here. Otherwise, just beware of using webView component in this way.

 

[Jack P]

Many THANKS to fellow developer, who points me to example case between 3Taps and Craigslist which the Court ruled that as quote "that people are "authorized" under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) to access a public website." --> "meaning that everyone starts out as "authorized" to access a publicly accessible website."

Therefore, the original claim of illegally accessing public web-sites and its public API is fallacy. And as the case continues, any attempt of discriminatory blocking on the publicly accessible server side may be a crime by itself.