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Comment by machomaster | Hacker News Reader

The person is allowed to walk to your door. They are not allowed to walk through your door.

It's a totally different thing.

Indeed. You can look at the shape of the API but not extract things through it. Look, sometimes seeing and using are the same thing, but calling an API, which causes the machine running the API to do work in response to the call, is not the same thing as looking at the API.

You might make a distinction between looking at the door and walking through that door. But that is a flawed analogy to this particular issue. Because you cannot "look" at API. API has a single purpose. It can be used.

And if the entity operating it does not want public to use it, they need to make it non-public.

> you cannot "look" at API.

An API may be considered to be a specification or even an implementation of a specification, and you can look at a specification, implement a specification, and even look at an implementation of a specification all without using the implementation of the specification to extract data from behind the curtain.

Anyway, public things and spaces often disallow specific uses or uses by specific people. Like a park where you're not allowed to take your dog. Access is not the same as permission.

> The person is allowed to walk to your door.

Not if you notify them of a restraining order saying otherwise. We have a number of social and legal constructs facilitating the establishment of situationally-adaptive permission boundaries.

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