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I recently saw a pop-up, on a http page. It was the advertisement of some offers provided by the ISP.

Here is the code: 

<td>
  <object width="480" height="195" data="<url>/V3/front_porch_RAN.swf" style="pointer-events:none;>...</object>
</td>

There is no javascript that is collecting my data, but is indulging in the activity of injecting code into the webpage, legal? I live in India.

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  • 2
    Does your contract with your ISP say they can do that?
    – Mark
    Commented Jun 12, 2015 at 21:07
  • 3
    Unless there is a law or contract saying they can't, then it's legal.
    – feetwet ♦
    Commented Jun 12, 2015 at 21:49
  • @Mark please notice that even if the contract says they can, this does not mean it magically becomes legal "whatever" it says.
    – o0'.
    Commented Jun 13, 2015 at 16:37
  • 1
    "Firstly there wasn't a contract" Not even a verbal one? If they agreed to a given downstream bandwidth, these injected packets are eating into that bandwidth.
    – Parthian Shot
    Commented Jun 22, 2015 at 20:28
  • 2
    @ohwilleke It displays some content in a box of a specified size that is part of a table structure. The content is whatever is at the specified URL, and could change at any time. The OP said what was displayed was an "advertisement of some offers provided by the ISP".
    – David Siegel
    Commented Dec 19, 2021 at 4:34

1 Answer 1

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Unless there is a law or regulation against it, it is legal.

However in a big government it can be practically impossible to determine whether something is legal. For example, nobody even knows how many criminal statutes have been promulgated by the U.S. federal government. And that's nothing compared to the volume of executive regulation and judicial case-law that determines whether something is illegal.

I.e., in practice determining that something is legal is a bit like proving a negative.

Furthermore, if you look long enough some argue that you can probably find some law under which almost any action could be considered illegal.

Note also that even if it is not against the law, it could be proscribed by contract (read your Terms and Conditions!), and breach of contract is in general – but with an astonishing number of exceptions! – illegal.

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  • 1
    "Unless there is a law or regulation against it, it is legal." Not so, there are many common law precedents that make things illegal for which no statute or administrative law exists.
    – Dale M ♦
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 1:07
  • @DaleM - I assume you mean "case law?" Which I'll admit I glossed past, but which only further supports the substance of this answer. I.e., "Oh, so you somehow managed to find and digest every law passed by every legislative body, and every regulation promulgated by the executive of every government entity with jurisdiction? Great, now get started on the case law that could potentially be cited by any court that might claim jurisdiction."
    – feetwet ♦
    Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 1:14
  • 1
    @feetwet which is the best argument against common law and for Code Civil type law: precedent is a mess
    – Trish
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 18:01
  • The Feds publish all their laws in three volumes: a) the US Constitution, b) USC, and c) CFR. That's it. There's no mystery there. The States also publish the same 3, then you have city ordinances. That's it. That's all you have to search for criminal laws. Case law only interprets; it can't make something criminal that wasn't before.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jan 4, 2022 at 23:33

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