Actowiz Solutions - Legal Information Page

Meta vs. Bright Data: United States District Court, Northern District of California

COURT DENIES META’S MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT

On January 23, 2024, Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California issued a ruling in Meta Platforms Inc. v. Bright Data Ltd., Case No. 3:23-cv-00077-EMC, that could have far-reaching implications for web scraping law. The court granted Bright Data's request for summary judgment, siding with the company that provides scraping tools and collects data from publicly available online sources, including Meta's platforms. This ruling extends the precedent set in the hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp. cases, where Judge Chen's interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030) redefined its application to scraping activities.

Click here for the full text of the ruling.

LinkedIn v. HiQ Labs: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

THE NINTH CIRCUIT UPHELD THE 2017 DECISION IN FAVOR OF HIQ LABS, RULING THAT LINKEDIN’S BLOCKING OF WEB SCRAPING DOES NOT CONSTITUTE UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO A PROTECTED COMPUTER.

The ruling reflects the Ninth Circuit’s 2019 decision, which upheld the 2017 determination in HiQ v. LinkedIn that web scraping does not equate to unauthorized access to a protected computer. HiQ, an employment analytics firm, filed the lawsuit in 2017, challenging LinkedIn’s efforts to block it from scraping publicly available profile data. More details can be found at The Register.

Van Buren v. United States: U.S. Supreme Court Case

Although this case does not specifically address web scraping, it examines the application of the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) in such contexts. It provides valuable insights into how the CFAA is interpreted in web scraping cases. While not addressing all CFAA-related questions, the decision appears to significantly narrow the law's scope, potentially discouraging companies from using the CFAA to challenge web scraping. A detailed commentary on the case can be found here.

Genius Media Group Inc. vs. Google LLC and LyricFind: Eastern District Court of New York

A web scraping lawsuit against Google, filed by Genius Media Group, was dismissed by Judge Margo Brodie. Genius alleged that Google scraped lyrics from their platform to feature in search results. The judge determined that these claims were efforts to enforce copyright owners’ rights against unauthorized reproduction, making them preempted by the Copyright Act. To explore the full ruling, refer to Genius Media Group Inc. vs. Google LLC and LyricFind (19-CV-7279 MKB), or read further on TechCrunch and LawStreetMedia.

Sandvig v. Sessions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

In a U.S. District Court ruling (Sandvig v. Sessions), the court acknowledged that web scraping may fall under the protections of the First Amendment. The decision emphasized that the plaintiffs’ choice to scrape data rather than manually record information does not alter the legal analysis. According to the court, scraping is simply a technological advancement that facilitates data collection, likened to using a tape recorder instead of taking written notes or using a smartphone’s panorama function instead of capturing multiple photos from different angles.

Meta vs. Bright Data: Case in the U.S. District Court for Northern California

In a significant ruling on January 23, 2024, Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a summary judgment in Meta Platforms Inc. v. Bright Data Ltd., Case No. 3:23-cv-00077-EMC. The court ruled in favor of Bright Data, a company specializing in scraping and providing data extracted from publicly available sources, including Meta’s social media platforms. This decision further strengthens the precedent set in the earlier hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp. cases, where Judge Chen’s interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030) reshaped the legal understanding of web scraping.

The full text of the ruling can be found here.

Sandvig v. Sessions - U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

In a groundbreaking decision, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. ruled that violating a website’s terms of service does not constitute a criminal offense under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Judge John D. Bates, in Sandvig v. Barr (Civil Action No. 16-1368), stated that criminalizing terms-of-service violations could turn each website into its own criminal jurisdiction, effectively granting webmasters legislative powers. This approach would create significant legal challenges, as each site’s terms would become its own law.

The full text of the ruling is available here.

Oracle v. Rimini Street: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Ruling

According to the EFF, a recent Ninth Circuit Court ruling clarifies that “taking data using a method prohibited by the applicable terms of use” – meaning scraping – does not breach state computer crime laws, as long as the data collection itself is generally allowed. As the EFF notes, “Neither statute... applies to simple violations of a website’s terms of use, where the user has permission to access the data but accesses it in a way the website owner disapproves of.”

The full text of the ruling is available here.