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What the Supreme Court Opinion in Van Buren Means for Web Scraping
Since the early 2000s, the most important federal law governing web scraping in the United States has been the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”). For host websites that wanted to stop scraping, the CFAA has been the go-to legal remedy to threaten web scrapers. For the first time since the law was enacted in … Read More
The First Rule of the Law of Web Scraping
The first rule of the law of web scraping is this: Details matter. As I’ve written before, there are dozens of laws associated with web scraping. As such, no single “three-part test” can tell you whether what you’re doing is legal or not. The only way to properly assess that is to look into the … Read More
The SEC, Web Scraping, and Material Non-Public Information
Web scraping has recently come under scrutiny from regulatory agencies that investigate securities laws. Increasingly, investment firms have been using web scraping as an alternative form of data collection. To bolster more traditional data sets like SEC filings and financial statements, investment firms have been going directly to websites and online resources to get information … Read More
About that Crazy Delaware Franchise Tax Bill…
Note: The numbers relating to Delaware’s tax rates below are accurate at the time this article was drafted. Delaware may change its charges; you should confirm those numbers at the time of filing. Delaware’s annual tax on corporations, which it calls a franchise tax, is due March 1st each year. There are two methods of … Read More
California Court: Facebook Can Enforce No Scraping Prohibition in Terms of Service in Password-Protected Section of Site
Facebook aggressively monitors web scraping on its platforms. And they aren’t shy about sending out cease and desist letters when they believe someone is violating their terms of service. After the Ninth Circuit’s decision in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp. in 2019, however, there might have been some question whether a court (and, in … Read More
Are Bots Legal?
Bots are perfectly legal. Unless, of course, they’re programmed or designed to do illegal things. To paraphrase legal scholars Mark Lemley and Bryan Casey, well-drafted laws prohibit verbs, not nouns. There are millions of ways that you could code or program an automated system that generates almost no legal risk whatsoever. And there plenty of … Read More
A Comprehensive Legal Guide to Web Scraping in the US
TL;DR Web scraping is a complicated legal subject involving more than a dozen different laws. As such, it’s not possible to summarize all the legal issues associated with web scraping in just a few hundred words. That said, you can read the bolded sections here and the infographics in just a few minutes and learn … Read More