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June 15, 2006

MySpace Nukes SingleStat.us

Michael Arrington

76 comments »

Well, so much for the SingleStat.us experiment that allowed people to find out when someone on MySpace changes their relationship status. MySpace’s friendly lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to David Weekly, the engineer who built SingleStat.us, demanding he take the site down and claiming that his “activities are causing and will continue to cause MySpace substantial and irreparable harm.”

It has come to our attention that you are operating a website under the domain name www.singlestat.us where you allow visitors to your website to investigate the current relationship status of any MySpace user and receive updates via e-mail when that user’s status changes. Although it may seem like an innocuous idea, the means by which you allow visitors to your website to investigate the relationship status of MySpace users constitutes an automated script program, the use of which is expressly prohibited by Section 8 of the Terms of Use Agreement between MySpace and its users. Such programs place an undue burden on the MySpace servers, thus detrimentally affecting the ability of the website to function. (emphasis added)

Something tells me that MySpace might be exaggerating just a bit when they say SingleStat.us is causing them “undue server burden”. And if I’ve learned anything from covering companies, it’s that sending a cease and desist letter to a small, one-man startup is generally not going to work out the way you planned. Bad karma. Nevertheless, SingleStat.us is now in the TechCrunch DeadPool.

Competitor DatingAnyone, a similar service, is still live.

Update: See ValleyWag for an interview with David Weekly.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. jared chandler

    June 15th, 2006 at 5:00 pm

    I hope I can get the Myspace Legal Team on my Friendslist ;-)

    They worry about SingleStat.us and DatingAnyone.com but ignore the NSA? (http://yro.slashdot.org/articl.....09/1245212)

    I personally shudder at the thought of having to now go and check the dating status of my friends manually.

  2. Search Engines WEB

    June 15th, 2006 at 5:00 pm

    Possibly, MySpace wants to add this optional function themselves, and get more potential revenue from their site - ;-)

    the undue burden on their servers is probably just a Generic Legal Reply - that will go out to everyone they decide is a threat to their dominance.
    :-(

    http://digg.com/technology/MyS.....gleStat.us

  3. Seth

    June 15th, 2006 at 6:02 pm

    I think that technically, myspace may be correct.

    But if they keep this up, they will be shooting themselves in the foot.

  4. Erik Kalviainen

    June 15th, 2006 at 6:03 pm

    Undue server burden. That’s hilarious.

    Myspace ~ 1 billion pageviews per day vs. singlestat.us ~ 10,000 pageviews per day. I’m sure the 0.001 % added load was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  5. wag

    June 15th, 2006 at 6:06 pm

    >But if they keep this up, they will be shooting themselves in the foot.

    Teenage girls don’t care if they have Open APIs or not…

  6. jared chandler

    June 15th, 2006 at 6:11 pm

    An interesting question in my mind is whether it was the crawling of myspace profiles (something google does) or the charge for the service aspect which weighted heaviest in their mind when deciding to put out a C&D.

    I can’t imagine them integrating any sort of feature along these lines into their site. There image is tarnished enough with 16 year old girls flying to the middle east and what not. hehe.

  7. Erik Schwartz

    June 15th, 2006 at 6:17 pm

    This is the inherent problem of any mash up. If the people whose stuff you’re mashing up like what you build they can send you a C&D and do it themselves.

  8. Pierre

    June 15th, 2006 at 6:19 pm

    That’s very sad, but I guess it’s totally legal…
    I don’t like MySpace behavior, I don’t believe neither in Google “angel” kind of behavior but at least when Google has a similar problem they send buyers instead of lawyers ;) (and they have API!)

  9. danny

    June 15th, 2006 at 6:27 pm

    DOWN with the evil empire…well maybe not….

    These big companies and their lawyers…don’t u guys have better things to do…like file frivolous lawsuits…!?!?!!?!!?

  10. Stephen

    June 15th, 2006 at 7:13 pm

    Crap, now how are 80 year old men going to keep track of all the 14 year old girls on there profile!

  11. Kevin Burton

    June 15th, 2006 at 7:15 pm

    SingleStat.us should just ignore the C&D… if they block them I have a way around the problem.

    Feel free to contact me via email if you want to continue talking about it…

  12. digifad

    June 15th, 2006 at 7:30 pm

    Great response to the C&D by David.

  13. Sam

    June 15th, 2006 at 8:09 pm

    I don’t like the idea of MySpace sending a C&D but no one here finds the idea someone keeping track of your relationship status on a little to really creepy.

  14. sNyx

    June 15th, 2006 at 8:10 pm

    shave the middle man; watch mySpace install the system for themselves. if it’s a good idea, they would want it. why allow outside web sites to grow off their own success when then can just eat them up.

  15. Calvin

    June 15th, 2006 at 8:12 pm

    eBay also has done this sort of thing during their heady growth days. Once the treehouse is built, it is best to pull up the ladder…

  16. Olli

    June 15th, 2006 at 8:15 pm

    This is to me the opposite to an open API.

    Another reason to join tagworld.

    Olli

  17. jared chandler

    June 15th, 2006 at 8:18 pm

    I’d cease and desist for a Myspace t-shirt, or maybe some Coffee Mugs.

  18. Yanamandra

    June 15th, 2006 at 8:33 pm

    MySpace could have recognized that it is a cool add on feature and should have offered the creator of this site some cash and acquired the code ?

  19. Adam

    June 15th, 2006 at 8:39 pm

    “…which is expressly prohibited by Section 8 of the Terms of Use Agreement between MySpace and its users….”

    Why would SingleStat.us be subject to the agreement between MySpace and it’s users? I mean heck , is Google, Yahoo and any other net-crawler subject to MySpace’s user TOS?

    Maybe I should put in My web site’s terms….”…and if you are a net crawler spidering my site for content you agree and hereby grant 50% of all your gross revenue’s to my company in return to access for said content….”

  20. Mick Gordon

    June 15th, 2006 at 9:39 pm

    It’s a drag being muscled by the bully, they generally win in my experience. Thats just a fact of life. Though I suppose if you are willing to devote your every waking moment to the battle you might die proud. Mick http://rockwatching.wordpress.com

  21. Marcus

    June 15th, 2006 at 11:57 pm

    hmmm, what about the people that paid for this service - I can’t imagine there’s that many but they’re gonna be a little bit upset! Myspace shutting this down is extremely unsuprising imho. Marcus

  22. mamamia

    June 16th, 2006 at 5:49 am

    rule #1 in business : never build your business around another business.

    of course there are exceptions (ebay’s mom and pop resellers) but generally, why the f would you stake your entire business around someone else’s? they can pull the plug at any minute.

  23. Jack

    June 16th, 2006 at 6:05 am

    Adam makes a good point, anyone know if MySpace has any legal precedent, etc for their letter.

    I mean why is singlestatus subject to a contract they did not sign and were not party to. Arent singlestatus users the ones who are violating the contract?

    Any insight would be appreciated.

  24. Rydal Williams

    June 16th, 2006 at 6:58 am

    The #1 reason why NOT to build a business that depends on another business! Although the letter seems crazy and whaacked, someone is bound to come up with something else. It seems MySpace plans to stick around for a while.

  25. James Yu

    June 16th, 2006 at 7:42 am

    Bad myspace, bad.

  26. Ali

    June 16th, 2006 at 7:54 am

    he should have put a paypal donate and some google ads and printed the letter at the same time on the home page.

    he chickened out to fast, I hate corporate bullying.

  27. ogletree

    June 16th, 2006 at 8:12 am

    It would be way cheaper just to block his scripts. I promise you there are zillions of bots hitting myspace. They need an anti bot program anyhow.

  28. Sean Coates

    June 16th, 2006 at 8:52 am

    This policy sucks. If MySpace would provide ANY sort of API, this wouldn’t be necessary.

    It disallows my useful app )-:

    See:
    http://blog.phpdoc.info/archiv......5-and-a-Y!Maps-toy.html\

    S

  29. Ben Mc

    June 16th, 2006 at 9:01 am

    This makes sense to me, people who use SingleStat.us would also be accessing info on MySpace without first agreeing to their TOS, so there could be legal problems due to the activity of users through the SingleStat.us system.

    Though evil ugly lawyers can inhibit some innovation at times, I think this one is understandable.

    Maybe MySpace could put out an API with allowable interaction with thier system.

    Most obcious probability - MySpace will create a search of some kind making this feature internal so people click their ads instead of ads at a 3rd party’s website.

  30. NT Hammer

    June 16th, 2006 at 9:07 am

    why dont myspace make a publicaly available RSS feed for user information, that wuld be much easier for sites like singlestat.us to grab userfull user information, and it owuld prolly help myspace in someway or another…

  31. myspace unblock

    June 16th, 2006 at 9:19 am

    strange if they are doing this… this is not going to help the actiuvites user are doping on myspace

  32. Dave

    June 16th, 2006 at 9:21 am

    The way I see it, MySpace is essentially protecting their content. If they allow SingleStatus to screen-scrape people’s dating status and display it on their own site, then what’s to prevent someone from building a screen-scraper to grab more than that? What would the threshold be? One piece of data? Two pieces of data? They’ve gotten to where they are because they’ve a ton of people to enter content … and they’re simply protecting that information.

    It has nothing to do with the load on their servers.

  33. Richard Tallent

    June 16th, 2006 at 9:53 am

    Dumb Web 1.0 company: “you can’t send bots to our servers.”

    Smart Web 2.0 company: “send your bots, here’s the API and the XML you’ll get back, and a key to log in.

    Web 3.0 solution: every person hosts their own MySpace-like app over their own broadband connection, that app individually serves requests and uses web services to communicate with friends’ servers and a long tail of other service.

  34. Luke

    June 16th, 2006 at 10:08 am

    If SingleStat requires information available only on the myspace network to function then I believe they are subject to the terms of use presented by Myspace, As they become a user of sorts.

    The difference between google and Singstat are simple, Google is indexing which takes maybe a few minutes, maybe once every month and using the crawl to advertise, as well as make the site easier to locate and access.

    SingleStat is pulling data All day, everyday, and not for indexing a page but to present its own data based on the data it obtains from myspace as a user. The data they use and present is not ment to permote, advertise, or make myspace easier to locate and use, it is designed for their own betterment. Im sure by now you are thinking along the lines that this still makes google one in the same, though I would continue to argue differently, one might go as far as to say data theft, but that is a bit harsh.

    By using the Data on myspace you are effectively placed under the same TOS Because the content is owned and managed by Myspace. I don’t think that the profiles stored there while publicly viewable are consider public domain.

  35. www.DCguide.com

    June 16th, 2006 at 10:16 am

    I understand MySpace’s point in that they have to protect their property. Plus, it’s creepy that someone can find out when you become single…like a crazy ex-girlfriend.

  36. Christian

    June 16th, 2006 at 10:38 am

    Looks like the MySpace beast does not like to be fed all the time. I think some people would pay for the service. It would simple for them to make that a feature on their site.

  37. kRabbit

    June 16th, 2006 at 10:47 am

    Couldn’t myspace just create an RSS feed with limited data that singlestatus could parse? That would lessen the burden on their servers and allow them to be USER-FRIENDLY!

  38. John Bokma

    June 16th, 2006 at 11:20 am

    MySpace should first work on a better way to fix the leeching issue. It’s extremely hard to have leeched images removed from MySpace. It takes several emails, and even then a request might be ignored.

    I got hundreds of hits daily from MySpace on 100K+ images, burdening my server. Grow up MySpace, or get off the net.

  39. scott

    June 16th, 2006 at 11:21 am

    I dont see how myspace can have a problem with this, If your making it public on the website, you have to be prepared that anyone can be using that data. They claim that they are breaking their terms of service, but unless singlestat.us has signed up for an account, they wouldnt fall under the terms of service, as they are not myspace.com users. could myspace block their servers, yeah. could the obfusticate your single status, yeah. but do they have a legal basis to tell them to stop or else? its shaky at best.

    And furthermore, a relationship status is not myspace.com’s intelectual property.

  40. hans

    June 16th, 2006 at 12:36 pm

    He folded too quickly. I would have looked at two options:
    1) Help MySpace competitors: in total Friendster, Tagworld, etc may provide similar coverage…and individually they may appreciate the traffic
    2) Fight the good fight and Make MySpace traffic claims real but without the liability: open source the code and watch as evil spammers try to drive traffic to their versions and bombard myspace with much less consideration for MySpace servers

    If MySpace was smart they would have screwed with his bot feeding it wrong data 50% of the time. Instead they got all stupid and decided to use lawyers.

    This is a great opportunity for TagWorld and the others if they jump on the bandwagon. Im surprised they havent renamed MySpace as RupertsOldSchoolSpace.

  41. tidokoro

    June 16th, 2006 at 1:07 pm

    As noted, the load on myspace’s servers would be negligible. One page load per monitored profile what 4 times a day?

    People who find the idea of their relationship status being monitored shouldn’t be on myspace to begin with.

    The developer’s response now posted on the website is point-on.

  42. asurroca

    June 16th, 2006 at 1:16 pm

    I don’t think anyone has said this yet: Who cares? Myspace has no public API, a terrible blogging platform, dated design, and so forth, and news like this proves that Myspace is beyond repair and will never again be the social phenomenon it once was. I think it’s time we move on and ignore Myspace.

    I’m going to try moving myself (and my circle of friends) to Tagworld (as someone above suggested) in the meantime, but I’ll tell you know, Tagworld is not the answer to Myspace by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just less awful.

  43. jared chandler

    June 16th, 2006 at 2:35 pm

    Tag World is just as bad.

    From their TOS:

    “L. Access the Service by any means other than through the interface provided by TagWorld for use in accessing the Service. This includes not using or launching any automated system, including without limitation any spider, robot (or �bot�), scraper, or offline reader, that accesses the Service in a way that sends more request messages to the TagWorld.com servers in a given time period than a human reasonably can produce in the same time period using a conventional online Web browser; and not using or launching any unauthorized script to add friends. Notwithstanding this, TagWorld grants the operators of general purpose Internet search engines permission to use spiders to copy Content from the Sites for the sole purpose of creating publicly available, searchable indices of such Content, but not caches or archives of such Content. (�General purpose Internet search engine� does not include a web site or search engine or other service that specializes in classified listings or in any subset thereof, such as jobs, housing, for sale, services, or personals, or that is in the business of providing classified ad listing services.) TagWorld reserves the right to revoke these exceptions, in general or specific instances.”

  44. Ross

    June 17th, 2006 at 4:23 am

    It is sad that MySpace doesn’t appreciate developments for their platform that cost them nothing to create and provide interesting services to their users.

    Considering MySpace is an ad based business, any tool, such as this one, that points people back to MySpace pages will be an asset.

  45. web design uk

    June 17th, 2006 at 4:31 am

    Aw that sucks. It was just a friendly site with a cool feature.

    Although I admit if I was running a site I wouldnt want people running scripts effectively lagging my servers.

    But to be honest MySpace is ALWAYS slow, so who will notice :)

  46. James

    June 17th, 2006 at 5:56 pm

    What a shame. I never knew of the site while it was online, but it sounds like a great idea. It would actually be very useful… ;)

    I honestly don’t understand how it would be lagging their servers if it’s only requesting a 1 or 0 status. If anything it would be free publicity for MySpace.

    Then again it’s not like Myspace needs the free publicity…

  47. yan

    June 17th, 2006 at 9:48 pm

    If myspace had a public RSS feed would that really change anything for singlestatus? I don’t think so…

  48. Drew Olanoff

    June 19th, 2006 at 10:14 am

    I preferred DatingAnyone.com anyways. I guess they’re next? That sucks.

  49. GoogTube

    June 20th, 2006 at 6:49 pm

    I hate myspace as much as the next guy, But I don’t see a problem with thier lettter.

    The myspace terms does clearly state that people may not use automated scripts to query thier servers, So what grounds to people have to complain when myspace asks them not to do it?

    I get the feeling peoples opinions would be different if thier site was being exploited so someone ellse can make money from thier hand work while using thier bandwidth and CPU cycles.

  50. Shanks Pandiath

    July 14th, 2006 at 12:43 am

    Reckon googtube couldn’t have put it better..

    It is not a matter of liking them, but anyone would react, if they feel that they were being exploited..

    Ciao

    PS.. Have put a link to this article in ma blog… with a link-back ofcourse.

  51. myspace layouts

    September 12th, 2006 at 7:07 pm

    That’s a shame. That was a sweet site! I’m sure some new myspace exploit site will popup very soon.

  52. www.msproxy.com

    November 14th, 2006 at 1:42 pm

    It is very bad this things happen. We have the right to freedom and free information.

  53. www.surfinter.net

    November 14th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

    I also use http://www.hidemyway.com to access banned websites!

  54. Rompe

    December 26th, 2006 at 4:09 pm

    In the course of a recent project, I was charged with building a fully functioning data scraper for, amongst other sites, Myspace profiles. The short of the system is to retrieve a myspace profile (owned by the EU) and disseminate the information to the database of the 3rd party site; basically cutting out the need to fill out yet another profile on yet another site. As a legal friend explained to me, the crawing of the sites is deemed to be a violation of their TOS, while an additional section makes claims that the information is owned solely by the individually posting it, who then has the right to do whatever they wish with the information they have provided. An awful double loophole

  55. FightTheFox.xom

    March 2nd, 2007 at 6:37 am

    We have created a dig site for webmasters and other people who want to fight against myspace & fox! FightTheFox.com

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