[hawhill]

I guess this thread is probably not the place to discuss forum policies - which would apply to more than this sub-forum.

Personally, I see a big difference. The legislation is certainly not globally unique in this area, but there's often something like "fair use" policy or an allowance to modify hardware you buy. Jailbreaking would be a fundamental right of any user under such circumstances. Ethics aside, tethering is a different matter here. It's technically supported lying to Amazon in order to make them give you what they didn't agree to give you in the first place. I'm not so fluent with US laws, but here in Germany, jailbreaking would (most probably) be acceptible under the law, tethering would (most probably) be a crime.

Edit: thanks knc1 for shedding light on the US situation. I guess similar laws will exist in a lot more legislations nowadays. Back in the day, they needed to draft a new law for this over here in Germany since "theft" implies taking a physical something from someone and "fraud" only applied when making other persons err in your favour - so now there's "computer fraud" over here.