Originally Posted by
lewinr
+1
We are paying KVS for a tool he has made (hence the name KVS Tool!), not for being a source of data.
He is pointing us to sources of data which are available for his tool.
And it is up to us if we use them or not.
I disagree. While it's called a tool, it's really not, or at least that's not how it's marketed. It's marketed as a service, and one which you must pay a subscription to use. Thus it's being marketed as a solution, and even though they're not supplying the data directly, it seems to me that it's implied that you will have access to the data they say with your subscription.
If it was just a tool, you'd expect them to sell it for a fixed cost, and then you're free to use it for your lifetime, or the lifetime that's it's useful, ie., data is available for it to use. And if it stops functioning as you expect, then you need to upgrade your tool, perhaps for some cost, or perhaps for free, depending on the software vendor's policies.
As to whether or not KVS is doing anything wrong by providing links to get access to an account which to me doesn't look like it was meant to be used by the public, I'll leave that for each individual to decide in their own mind, based on their individual sense of right/wrong. But if KVS felt there was nothing wrong with their actions, then why the need for secrecy and providing a google link? Why not just simply provide the account name/password directly and state clearly that it's up to the user to decide whether they want to use that information to make their own account? Would have been much simpler for the users. Without seeing their actual email, it sounds to me that the way they've done it, many users may not even realize that they're doing something of very questionable ethics/legality. Nor may they realize that if someone decides to revoke these newly created accounts, they will once again be without any data source and stuck with a tool which serves them no purpose, or at least not the full functionality which they thought they would get with it.
For those who purchased subscriptions and realized it's just a tool without any guarantee of data, fine, and I hope your happy. But I imagine they likely have a lot of customers who felt their subscription was a service, and now suddenly that service has been severely restricted, unless you want to register accounts/engage in activity that you may not be authorized to.