I'm pretty sure that a server, being a stupid piece of inanimate junk, is unable to enter any agreements or disagreements. In contrast, people, being endowed with free will supported by the ability to reason, need to apply said will and reason when directing actions of pieces of junk, so as to follow the same procedures of inter-party conduct as in direct interaction.
Since a web server, by its primary mode of operation, does indeed more or less indiscriminately send replies to whomever makes a request, it follows that the duty of choice lies with the client. The person operating the client has to apply their reason and follow the inter-party conduct.
> Since a web server, by its primary mode of operation, does indeed more or less indiscriminately send replies to whomever makes a request, it follows that the duty of choice lies with the client.
Sorry, why isn't it the duty of choice the server owner, who chooses to put the server online in the first place? What exactly are these rules you think exist? This is the first time I've ever heard of them.
> Since a web server, by its primary mode of operation, does indeed more or less indiscriminately send replies to whomever makes a request,
This is completely false. The server owner can authenticate GET requests and return an unauthorized response if the client is not permitted to access the document. We are not talking about a situation where a hacker attempts to brute force a password or gain unauthorized access to a server. If the server is on the internet serving anonymous GET requests with no authentication the reasonable assumption is that anyone is permitted to access the data.
Well, if you think that it would be more reasonable and expedient to require users to read a contract beforehand and then authenticate themselves to the service before accessing any content―please, knock yourself out on your site.
It appears that the rest of the web gets by pretty well using the legal framework I've described. Because, you know, they tend to choose things to be pragmatical instead of those that “can be done.”
Since a web server, by its primary mode of operation, does indeed more or less indiscriminately send replies to whomever makes a request, it follows that the duty of choice lies with the client. The person operating the client has to apply their reason and follow the inter-party conduct.