Nuclear Fitbit

Weng

https://dev.fitbit.com/terms I am now curious how the Fitbit API is even conceivably applicable to the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

locallunatic

Isn't that a standard export restriction clause on basically everything (though it would make more sense if you had to state it was allowed instead of almost always 'no')?

Weng

I've never seen it on an API before.

Lorne Kates

**Marty McFly**: Doc, you don't just walk into a store and-and buy a FitBit! Did you rip that off? **Dr. Emmett Brown:** Of course. From a group of Libyan nationalists.

Polygeekery

@Weng said:

I've never seen it on an API before.

Really? That clause is so commonplace that I don't even notice it anymore.

CoyneTheDup

I don't think the export restrictions are nearly as fun as this:

(6b) You hereby grant to Fitbit a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty free, license to copy, display, perform, transmit, and use any Developer Applications and related marks and logos that you create using the Fitbit API, for the purposes of promoting Fitbit and marketing and providing those Developer Applications to customers.

(15) IN NO EVENT WILL FITBIT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, EXEMPLARY, PUMITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING LOSS OF USE, DATA, BUSINESS OR PROFITS) ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT...

~~Simon~~Fitbit says, "Make a great app, so we can confiscate it and sell it and give you nothing."

Weng

Now that is extremely common.

CoyneTheDup

True enough, but also...

@Weng said:

Now that is extremely ~~common~~annoying.

Fox

It might be useful for testing the effectiveness of the aforementioned types of weapons?

Steve_The_Cynic

Behind the API, there's probably crypto, and crypto is still classed as munitions?

anonymous234

This is a WTF, but not by the Fitbit people.

The entire legal system encourages (as in "you have a real chance of going to jail if you don't") putting as many clauses as you can in your terms of use. Partly by virtue of not being able to know (not even by spending large sums of money on lawyers) whether something is legal or not until you do it.

Literally 9/10ths of every ToS and EULA are obvious or irrelevant stuff. But would YOU risk not putting that stuff there?

Onyx

I don't know, it measures heartbeat, no? You could make a dead man's switch with that...

Maciejasjmj

@Weng said:

I am now curious how the Fitbit API is even conceivably applicable to the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

public partial class FitbitAPI
{
    public string GetRandomString()
    {
        return "00000-00000" //U.S. missile launch code guaranteed to be random by the Department of Defense
    }
}

rc4

Clinton relaxed those rules a long time ago (late nineties) but it may not have been removed from boilerplate legal text.

redwizard

Standard inclusion.

Kind of like including braille on the buttons on drive-thru ATMs - industry CBA to make a separate set of non-braille-containing buttons because of costs.

PleegWat

Costs, these are perfectly serviceable as well, and it might be possible to find a single person somewhere in the US who could go to the drive-through ATM but wouldn't be able to use it effectively without braille buttons