Are auto-refresh settings in a browser or script-based auto-refresh's legal?

I ask this because, as you know, the tag admin only sees failed ops now if the country in question has already seen them. Thus, an auto-refresh on countries will allow a single person to monitor the tag admin and see all failed ops on the alliance.

Is auto-refresh considered a "non-human action" sending to the game server, and thus illegal?

It's a grey area that for now we are allowing, as there's no real way to distinguish it... that said, if it becomes obvious and excessive (1/s 24/7) it might be detected and deleted...