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Legality of Web Scraping in 2024 — An Overview

Web scraping legality

Ever since the invention of the World Wide Web, web scraping has been one of its most integral facets. It is how search engines are able to gather and display hundreds of thousands of results instantaneously. And also how companies build databases, develop marketing strategies, generate leads, and so on.

While its potentials are immense, there are also concerns regarding the legality of web scraping. Thanks to some high-profile cases (which we’ll look at later in this article) and some frequent issues, “Is web scraping legal?” is one of the most frequently asked questions. The answer? Well, it depends — on each use case.

For SaaS and Daas providers, and data-driven businesses alike, it is important to have a clear understanding about all of the aspects of web scraping. In this post, we look at its legal aspect and try to give you an overview about:

Commonly held misconceptions

The general belief is that everything you see online is free to scrape and reuse. This is probably the biggest misconception out there regarding web scraping. This could land any individual or company in legal hot water.

The question of web scraping’s legality isn’t as black and white as one might assume — there’s also an ethical side that one must be aware of and familiar with. Knowing what kind of data is legal, illegal, or somewhere in between will help your decision-making. It can help you avoid any unintended and unnecessary consequences.

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Things to consider

There are a few things one needs to consider before and after scraping any data.

Types of data

In most cases, the degree of ease with which any web data is accessible more or less determines where the data lies on the legality spectrum.

Public data

Scraping data from public sites is perfectly legal. This refers to the data and information on websites which is obtained without the need to log in or authenticate one’s identity. Some examples of such websites are ecommerce platforms like Amazon and BestBuy.

Although these data sources might try to protect public information by posing various obstacles to scrapers and crawlers, extracting data points off them is absolutely fine.

Private or personal data

Any data that can reveal a person’s identity, such as their name, address, date of birth, medical and financial details, and contact information, are called Personally Identifiable Information, or PII.

As a general rule, it is illegal to scrape any personal information without the person’s consent or without any legal motivation. EU and California currently have the strictest laws regarding the legality of web scraping in this respect.

Copyrighted data

It is illegal to scrape any openly accessible data like images, songs, articles, etc. that are intellectual properties of any business or individual. Because their owners have full control over their use and reproduction, scrapers require explicit consent in order to extract them. As a workaround, you can use snippets of the data, or cite and credit the sources to use the data.

Website Terms of Service (ToS)

Before scraping any website for its data, one needs to be aware of its policies regarding its access. If they explicitly contain any scraping restrictions, then it is worth assuming that scraping would constitute a breach of their ToS. In addition, even if there aren’t any such policies, one should be wary that their content may still be copyrighted.

Scraping behind a subscription or login

Services like LinkedIn require users to have an account before any data is visible. When signing up with these services, you’re almost always agreeing to their terms which forbid scraping their data.

Since scraper bots and crawlers use your account credentials to gain access to the data, the service provider can easily identify and ban you from their platform altogether. Hence, it is advised to stay away from this option and instead try to find publicly available data.


Current legislations

As there currently aren’t any clear laws determining the legality or otherwise of web scraping, lawsuits are handled on a case-by-case basis. Having said that, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the US Privacy Act are referred to in most cases in Europe and the US respectively.

web scraping legality
US Supreme Court

GDPR

The GDPR came into effect in May 2018 and protects the personal details of people within the European Economic Area (EEA). Some example of personal data include people’s names, emails, phone numbers, dates of birth, IP address, credit card and bank details, medical records and multimedia like photos, audio and videos.

The GDPR classifies the protection of personal data as a “fundamental right“. As such, it prohibits the processing of personal data unless it is done under one of six lawful bases. Which are consent, contract, public task, vital interest, legitimate interest, or legal requirement. When the processing is based on consent, the data subject has the right to revoke it at any time.

Furthermore, data controllers must clearly disclose any data collection, declare the lawful basis and purpose, and state how long they plan to retain the data. Additionally, disclose if it is subject to sharing with third parties or outside of the EEA.

US Privacy Act

While the US doesn’t have one federal regulation that legislates data privacy and protection like the EU, there are several industry-specific legal acts. Such as the GLBA for finance, HIPAA for healthcare, and COPPA for children’s data.

In 2020 however, California passed a state law — the Californian Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) — which requires companies collecting personal data to explicitly disclose how they intend to use that data. It also allows consumers to remove their information or opt-out of data collection. The same rules also apply to data scraping companies.

Comparison

The GDPR and CCPA both allow consumers to access and remove their personal information and opt-out altogether at any given time. However, users can edit their data under the GDPR, but not under the CCPA. Similarly, the CCPA only asks for privacy notice on websites, while the GDPR requires explicit user consent.


Frequent legal issues

The following are some of the most repeated offenses and issues in context of web scraping.

Data server
Sending frequent requests web servers disrupts a website and reduces its performance.

Copyright infringement

As mentioned above, although scraping any openly accessible data may be legal, there may be certain restrictions and legal consequences if the data is copyright-protected. If you want to abide by the legal framework, you cannot publish or use any such data for commercial purposes.

Any infringement of copyrighted data is prosecutable, regardless of how you access and collect the data.

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violation

The CFAA was passed in 1984 to prohibit any unauthorized access to computers and networks. The reason for the draft originally was to protect military, financial, and other sensitive data. Later they extended it to include all private information.

The CFAA doesn’t apply to web crawlers and scraping techniques that access only publicly available information.

Trespass to chattels

A trespass to chattels (or site security) occurs when a website or its servers are violated or hurt in any way. In web scraping, a crawler repeatedly sending requests affects the target website’s performance by crashing or slowing down its server.

From a legal standpoint, the site owners might consider the frequent requests as an intentional attack on their system. As a result, it is important and morally responsible for DaaS providers to build scrapers that don’t harm the target website.


High-profile cases

As mentioned earlier, there are a few historical cases which have set legal precedence in web scraping lawsuits.

eBay vs Bidder’s Edge (1999)

Bidder’s Edge, a website that gathered auction listings, sent 100,000 daily requests to eBay’s servers to access its ongoing auctions. This obviously resulted in damage to eBay’s systems. In late 1999, eBay filed an injunction against Bidder’s Edge, stating the violation of the Trespass to Chattels law.

Although both parties later settled the case out of court for an undisclosed amount, it set a legal precedent for future cases.

hiQ Labs vs LinkedIn

HiQ Labs vs LinkedIn (2019)

This historic case started when hiQ Labs, a data analytics company, sued LinkedIn for prohibiting it from scraping public profiles on LinkedIn. HiQ Labs used the data to consult employers about job applicants.

In 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the CFAA did not apply since the data was publicly available and non-copyright. As a result, LinkedIn wasn’t able to prevent hiQ Labs from accessing its public profiles. It did however restrict the user profiles to be accessible only after logging in.

It is worth mentioning that the case is far from concluded as LinkedIn continues to pursue the matter with the US Supreme Court.

Update (April 2022):

In its second ruling on 18 April 2022, the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed its original decision and found that scraping data that is publicly accessible on the internet is not a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The CFAA governs what constitutes computer hacking under U.S. law. [via TechCrunch]

Update (December 2022):

On 6 December 2022, hiQ Labs and LinkedIn reached a confidential settlement agreement, thus ending their long-running litigation.


Summary

Since the question of web scraping isn’t black or white, you must analyze each use case thoroughly to avoid any unintended consequences. You need to consider existing legislation, the types of data you collect, and the data sources’ terms and policies. Furthermore the ethical usage after extraction.

Here at Grepsr, we take our web scraping responsibilities extremely seriously. We adhere to all legal frameworks before, during, and after taking on a data acquisition project. We also follow the best ethical practices and stay within the bounds of the legality of web scraping. Therefore, we ensure that we avoid disrupting our target websites’ performances. All whilst continuing to deliver the most accurate and reliable data to all our customers.

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Data Scraping from Alternate Sources — PDF, XML & JSON

An unconventional format — PDF, XML or JSON — is just as important a data source as a web page.

QA protocols at Grepsr

QA at Grepsr — How We Ensure Highest Quality Data

Ever since our founding, Grepsr has strived to become the go-to solution for the highest quality service in the data extraction business. At Grepsr, quality is ensured by continuous monitoring of data through a robust QA infrastructure for accuracy and reliability. In addition to the highly responsive and easy-to-communicate customer service, we pride ourselves in […]

benefits of high quality data

Benefits of High Quality Data to Any Data-Driven Business

From increased revenue to better customer relations, high quality data is key to your organization’s growth.

quality data

Five Primary Characteristics of High-Quality Data

Big data is at the foundation of all the megatrends that are happening today. Chris Lynch, American writer More businesses worldwide in recent years are charting their course based on what data is telling them. With such reliance, it is imperative that the data you’re working with is of the highest quality. Grepsr provides data […]

11 Most Common Myths About Data Scraping Debunked

Data scraping is the technological process of extracting available web data in a structured format. More businesses globally are realizing the usefulness and potential of big data, and migrating towards data-driven decision-making. As a result, there’s been a huge rise in demand in recent years for tools and services offering data for businesses via Data […]

amazon scraping challenges

Common Challenges During Amazon Data Collection

Over the last twenty years, Amazon has established itself as the world’s largest ecommerce platform having started out as a humble online bookstore. With its presence and influence increasing in more countries, there’s huge demands for its inventory data from various industry verticals. Almost all of the time, this data is acquired via web scraping […]

amazon data extraction

Customer Review Insights: Analyzing Buyer Sentiments of Amazon Products

Actionable insights from Amazon reviews for better decision-making

web scraping with python

Track Changes in Your CSV Data Using Python and Pandas

So you’ve set up your online shop with your vendors’ data obtained via Grepsr’s extension, and you’re receiving their inventory listings as a CSV file regularly. Now you need to periodically monitor the data for changes on the vendors’ side — new additions, removals, price changes, etc. While your website automatically updates all this information when you […]

A Look Back at Grepsr’s 2020

A brief look at Grepsr's achievements in data extraction and industry reach in 2020, and a glimpse into 2021 plans.

Our Newly Redesigned Website is Live!

We’ve redesigned our website to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for

data mining during covid

Role of Data Mining During the COVID-19 Outbreak

How web scraping and data mining can help predict, track and contain current and future disease outbreaks

Grepsr’s 2019 — A Year (and Decade) in Review

Time flies when you’re having fun

Introducing Grepsr’s New Slack-like Support

Making our data acquisition specialists more accessible to busy professionals

Introducing Grepsr’s Data Quality Report

Quality assured data to help you make the best business decisions

Report History/Activity on the Grepsr App

A walk-through detailing your report history and how to access (and download) your report’s data from historic crawl runs

Data Retention in Grepsr

New policy announcement

Automate Future Crawls Using Scheduler

Configure and enable schedules to automate future crawls

Data Delivery via FTP

Have your Grepsr files synced automatically to your FTP/SFTP server

Data Delivery via Webhooks

Get notified as soon as your Grepsr data is ready

Data Delivery via Google Drive

Have your Grepsr files synced automatically to your Google Drive

Data Delivery via Amazon S3

Have your Grepsr files synced automatically to your Amazon S3 bucket

Data Delivery via Box

Have your Grepsr files synced automatically to your Box account

Data Delivery via File Feed

Under File Feed, there are two URLs — marked ‘Latest’ and ‘All’. Here’s a brief demo:

Customized Data Extraction via Grepsr Concierge

Although Grepsr for Chrome is a powerful tool in itself, it sometimes lacks the capability to extract data from some websites that are poorly structured, where data fields are hidden, and so on. Here we give you a simple demonstration on how you can get data from these complex websites via our custom platform — Grepsr Concierge. […]

Common Issues and Tips to Get the Best out of Grepsr

We know how annoying it is when you’ve spent time setting up Grepsr for Chrome to collect your data fields, and then you get back partial or no data at all.

Feeds & Endpoint API for Your Data in Grepsr

In our last post, we showed you how to automate your data delivery process in the Grepsr app. This time let’s have a quick look at data feeds and endpoints[*]. Your scraped data’s Endpoint API is the final stop it makes in its journey— starting from the host website, then to your Grepsr account via our crawler, and […]

Automate Your Data Delivery on the Grepsr App

I’m sure you’ve already got the hang of Grepsr for Chrome by now. If you’re like some of our users who are inquiring about data delivery on the app, then this blog is for you! Once you’ve set up your project and the app starts to extract your data, depending on the volume of data requested, it might […]

Kick-Start Your E-commerce Venture with Grepsr

400+ million entrepreneurs worldwide are attempting to start 300+ million companies, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Approximately a hundred million new businesses start every year around the world, while a similar number also fold. What sets successful firms apart are the innovations and resources they utilize that help them stay healthy and relevant. Grepsr […]

How to Use Grepsr Browser Tool to Scrape the Web for Free

A beginner’s guide to your favorite DIY web scraping tool Just over a year ago, we introduced the all new Grepsr along with a beta launch of Chrome extension to fill the gap that Kimono Labs, a widely popular scraping tool, left since it’s closure. Now after a year of iteration on both the UI and UX along with shipping […]

Importance of Web Scraping in the Age of Big Data

Big Data has become an internet buzz lately. Not a day goes by without a mention of Big Data in many articles published by media or tech companies around the world.

FIVE Essential Questions for Assessing your Big Data Deployment Readiness

Big Data isn’t just a big buzzword. Nor is it merely a business ritual. Ask yourself these 5 essential questions to know if you business is ready for data-driven transformation in the Big Data era

Data Extraction for BI: Picking the Right Services is Crucial

Finding the appropriate data warehousing and Business Intelligence (BI) platforms that can understand and address your business concerns, priorities, and needs is a daunting task. Specifically, the ones that can have cohesive approaches in generating and deploying your data

Seven Key Areas Where Big Data has Brought Big Transformations

As the volume, variety, and velocity of Big Data increases, so does its value and application. Today, there is a widespread use of Big Data, and the whole fabric of life has become increasingly data driven. Here is a brief review of 7 major areas which have gone through massive transformations driven by data: Business Business enterprises […]

Data Mining for Developing Business Intelligence

The growing use of digital technologies in every sphere of life has resulted in the rapid escalation of digital data. While digitization of the facilities of everyday use has given rise to datafication, the process of datafication has produced a byproduct known as big data, which is regarded as a new oil of the digital […]

How Grepsr Works: A Brief Introduction

Web crawling and data extraction services at Grepsr are simple, quick, hassle free and intuitive. We focus on providing top–quality services to our customers in the highly competitive rates. Our strong base–with cutting-edge technologies and advanced infrastructure–in Kathmandu and our maturing technical expertise in the area have helped us to compete with the top tire […]

11 Interesting Quotes about Data

These days, almost everybody—be it a casual technophile or a trailblazing technocrat—has something to say about the usefulness of data. Apparently, there is no area of human interest where you cannot achieve agility, efficiency, and better outcome by deploying data science. Business, astronomy, neuroscience and you name it. Data had never been generated with such […]

Big Data is Redefining News & Journalism

If digital data were something physical, it would have massively altered the shape of our world, probably, with new data mountains rising every hour. Whether you browse the web or flip pages of print media, you are sure to stumble upon some news about big data, all the while feeding the web with your digital […]

Data Mining: How Can Businesses Capitalize on Big Data?

In the recent years, data mining has become a prickly issue. The big controversies and clamors it has gathered in the political and business arenas suggest its importance in our time. No wonder, it is used as a household name in the business world. Data mining, in fact, is an inevitable consequence of all the technological innovations […]

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