Doug, where is the developer API TOS? I think that's part of the problem - none of us are being required to enter into an agreement before developing, therefore we have no idea what we can and can't do with it. I also don't think most of us even know where any such TOS is, if there is one. I agree that the OAuth application process should make this a bit easier to manage, and help developers know more about what they are getting into before starting their applications. Personally, I want to make sure I'm following the rules of the API. I'd also prefer to know what I'm agreeing to before starting a business on top of it. I feel for the developers of the 2 mentioned apps because, *if* they are violating any TOS, they probably had no idea they were doing so before spending so much time developing it. (even if I disagree with the premise of those apps)
@Jesse On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 5:31 PM, Doug Williams <[email protected]> wrote: > Brant,Thank you for your concern. This is something that bothers us as > well. > > Moving applications exclusively to OAuth-based authentication will > certainly help in restricting applications that abuse the service. If you > find a service that you think is violating our TOS, please email > [email protected] or send a message to @twitterapi and we can take a look. > As you mentioned, Del is great but she is but one person. We do have an > abuse team forming to help quickly identify which services are violating our > TOS. All in all we have a lot of work to do so please do help where you can. > > Cheers, > Doug > > > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Brant <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> This message will hopefully get back to the people who run Twitter API >> development and spam prevention. >> >> I noticed there are quite a few twitter applications that are >> developed to abuse the service and violate their TOS. They do not >> hide what their purpose is, yet these applications remain active. I >> contacted twitter.com/delbius who heads Twitter Spam prevention and >> she said that they do revoke API access to abusive applications. But >> I don't think they are taking an aggressive stance against them. >> >> Abusive Applications: >> http://www.huitter.com/mutuality/ >> http://www.twollo.com/ >> >> The combination of these two applications is for outright abuse of the >> service. They have been around for several months and are known >> applications to abuse the service with. To make matters worse, >> Twitter suspends accounts of the people who use these applications >> rather than targeting the root of the problem, the applications >> themselves. (Sound counterproductive? RIAA uses a similar policy by >> going after end users.) >> >> I propose that applications need to be more closely scrutinized and >> can even be flagged as abusive by users. Instead of creating >> algorithms that detect abnormal user behavior, why not detect abnormal >> application behavior. >> >> Taking a stronger stance against gray area applications could reduce >> server load on Twitter (giving real applications faster response time) >> and reduce manpower to deal with spam prevention. >> >> I strongly encourage anyone who develops Twitter applications to send >> this link around. >> >> Thanks for reading, >> Brant >> twitter.com/BrantTedeschi >> > >
