Dear Sis,Your dating website would be a great idea and I'm sure a lot of singles out there will find it useful. I've provided the answers to your questions which I hope will help clear up the confusions for you.
There is a difference between the activities of Bidder's Edge and eBay's normal customers. Typically, customers would search for products from eBay's website then, to search another website, customers would have to leave eBay. Bidder's Edge however, searched products from eBay's website, as well as numerous other auction websites, through an automatic process. This feature allowed customers the convenience of comparing different products from different websites on Bidder's Edge.
At first, eBay permitted Bidder's Edge access to search its' products. However, as negotiations failed between the two companies, Bidder's Edge was prohibited from accessing eBay's servers. This represented a significant loss for Bidder's Edge because its' automated system could no longer search for products on eBay's website.
The satellite office campus of eBay in the North F...
EBay
The headquarters of eBay in San Jose, California. ...Determine to prevent this potential loss, Bidder's Edge used proxy servers to continued its access to search eBay's products. When eBay found out, it filed a lawsuit on Bidder's Edge.
According to eBay, Bidder's Edge's access to eBay's servers was a potential threat to eBay's system by slowing it down and causing data loss and system unavailability. Thus, it matter a great deal to eBay when it found out that Bidder's Edge have illegitimately searched its' products without permission.
Causing injuries to one's personal property as well as interfering with one's enjoyment of his/her personal property is considered trespass to personal property. By accessing eBay's servers, Bidder's Edge is considered a trespasser to eBay's personal property. Although at minimum levels, Bidder's Edge had cause injuries to eBay's property when it accessed the servers. For this reason, trespass to computer services in California bears the same meaning as trespass to personal property. A website's servers are considered personal property. Thus when someone, whether it being an individual or business (as in this case), illegitimately interferes with it, that person has trespass to personal property.
Sis, in conclusion, all this means that if you are going to establish links to other dating websites then you should be concern about trespass to personal property. You should have legal permission from every website that you will establish a link for. You should also be concern about personal jurisdiction too, assuming that your new dating website will be a very interactive one. If you have more questions, shoot me an email.
Good Luck! References: Cheeseman H.R. (March, 2006) Contemporary Business and Online Commerce Law. (5th Edition) Upper Saddle River; New Jersey.
The Recorder (May, 2000) Trampling through the Websites - When is "Linking" an Illegal Trespass? Lead Story-Dateline