Bots on sites versus bots on computers (Score 1)

An interesting question is how does this controversy extend to software operating on a personal machine. Example : If I write a script to do the searches for me personally and run it on my machine, will I be infringing on e-bays or others sites rights. It seems to me that e-bay wants us to access information but on their terms not ours.

And further what if I hand that script to a friend (or sell it to someone) and they use it.

I can't see why this wouldn't be ok, since it is only using the computer for what it was made for (to automate repetitive, monotonous tasks) and its only one step further to have someone else do the searching for you