The next paragraph says:
Except as expressly set out above, you may not reproduce, modify or in any way commercially exploit any of the Content.

Nothing there limits what you can “retrieve and display” for your own personal use, whatever technology you use to do so. It does restrict how you can “modify or reproduce” the material. There’s no explicit provision for “fair use”, but I believe that is allowed by copyright law anyway.

I agree that T&Cs of this sort are a bit pointless – mainly there to keep the council’s legal officer happy I expect – but I don’t see them as worthy of warnings on LDV.

# a machine for performing calculations automatically
# calculator: an expert at calculation (or at operating calculating machines)
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

# A computer is a programmable machine that receives input, stores and manipulates data, and provides output in a useful format.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer

When I programme my washing machine, I input some variables, including extra settings and similar, it calculates the washing time on the display and then when I press start it washes my clothes, while the display counts down the remaining time. Two useful outputs (clean clothes, remaining wash time), many different input variables. And it manipulates the data to give me a washing time in a digital LCD display.

By the definition of the word, it’s a computer. Sure, common parlance would say “I buy a computer” to mean a desktop, netbook, laptop or similar device, but these days a lot of purchasers would be that specific.

And Sharp launched an Android powered netbook today, it’s teeny tiny, definitely a phone, but also definitely a computer.

I have no doubt that for the purposes of certain statues, computer can be defined in a much more tight manner. Just as carrots can be defined as fruits for the purpose of jam making. I understand both these cases, doesn’t make it right.

if there were no rules, you’d be limited to what copyright law permits by default, which is not a lot

Traditionally there’s a bit of legal handwaving here about “implied permission” – by posting a page on the web, you implicitly grant permission for people to do all the things they normally do with websites, including the very limited forms of personal copying needed to process or display the page.

Utterly daft T&Cs, but it’s still a computer.

Given that the average smart phone has more processing power than a computer would only a few years ago, and even a ‘dumb’ phone is not far behind do phones qualify as computers, or Cars, TVs, Washing Machines, etc, etc, all of which have the kind of processing power that early computer makers could only dream of.

After all, if it’s good enough for Parliament, then it’s good enough for me!

Back on April Fools Day Gamestation.com slipped a clause into their terms and conditions that all visitors agreed to hand over their immortal souls if they purchased anything. 90% of customers didn’t notice!

This case is almost as silly … in order to find out how you’re allowed the read the website you first have to, errm, read the website. I can’t see that standing up in court somehow…