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
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
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
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
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
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