Ed Felten also has an opinion on several professional schools rejecting applicants who viewed their application status before they had permission. The thing that bugs me most about this case is that it’s hard for me to imagine any rational person not peeking. If someone told me that a company had already made a decision about whether to hire me or not, and that I could find out what it was by editing a URL on the site where I submitted my application, the odds that I wouldn’t check approach zero. Professor Felten asks the salient question — who was harmed?