Your question is essentially whataboutism. Both things can be wrong. We can care about this instance without diluting the conversation talking about something else that is also bad.
It's not intended to be whataboutism (sorry about that, I edited this in to clarify) -- I agree that the deception was wrong. But there seems to be something about this particular event that is riling people up, and that's what I am getting at. I am not trying to whatabout, to be super clear.
To clarify. I don't think people would be riled up about individuals sending out these emails. Individuals are required to be legal, not 'ethical'.
The people who are riled up believe that University studies should be performed ethically. They know that IRB's exist to prevent researchers from doing unethical, but legal, things. In this case, they feel the harm caused should have been prevented.
Scraping data silently doesn't cause stress/harm to the participants directly, as they are unaware of any potential threat.
It's not "human experimentation should be banned" its "human experimentation should be heavily scrutinized to prevent harm to participants as much as possible. And definitely never cause harm to unwilling / unwitting participants".
What bothers/riles me is that there doesn't seem to be a consistent ethical framework applying to these complex situations. Of course things should be ethical but ethics aren't defined as “whatever people on HN and Twitter feel like isn't slimy”.
