I havent found any definitive answer for this.

is it illegal to distribute *free apps* that display html content ( without modifying ) by querying external websites ?

I know that some websites provide apis's to access their content, but the majority dont have it , so to create the query in your app and get the data to display it on the phone using a *free app*, would this also count as web scraping and be considered illegal ?
Perhaps some of those websites rely on advertising for revenue so may be case to case also ?

I think all of us creating apps must be aware of this so we dont end up in legal issues, and also hosting on maemo.org would only highten the problem.
are there any rules imposed by maemo.org on this ?

thanks.

So you are asking if web browsers are illegal?

I don't see how it could be illegal, as it would be technically no different that viewing the content with a web browser with an ad blocker...

well its a little different here from a normal browser , on a browser you get to see the actual website in its entirety, including the ad banners on a website (?) and links to their sponsors blah blah. ( inspite of the ad blocker i suppose ? )
Sorry maybe I wasnt clear when I said I dont modify the html data.

In apps, we would not like to display the entire content as it would display on a normal browser with ad blocker , so we extract the relevant data from the response html and display what we want
( we arent changing data but just the format thats what i had meant by not modifying data )
hope that clarifies

I don't see how it would be illegal at all.A few Apps on Extras pull data from external websites.

could you tell me a few examples (app and website they access) to look up please.
cheers.

omweather, for example

Thanks.

But, I just went through their source code.
seems like THIS is one of the feeds they use and its free and available to public as per the weather.com website ( so this is an exception since its explicitly provided by the data source )

" Weather XML Data Feed
Now you can include weather data from The Weather Channel® in your website, desktop application, or widget in return for proper attribution and five (5) required links back to www.weather.com. Sign up now – It's FREE"

I agree websites that provide developers with api's or feed are legal but not many do as I stated in my initial post, I was referring to data from those websites that dont provide such a feed. What about them ?

cheers

some websites also explicity state their intellectual rights like this

That really would be on a site by site basis and per their use agreement (If they have one) Its not illegal. Maemo OS and licenses don't seem to care.

EDIT: You could also request if you are allowed to access the website via an App you are writing to any websites that talk about consent

If you do request access, I would suggest spending some time formulating the question. Asking "Can I rip your website?" vs. something like "I really like your website. I would like to offer this information to mobile users... What kind of attribution and linking would be required? etc."