Is Web Scraping legal?

Yasin Panwala Dec 19, 2021 1 325

Forums › Is Web Scraping legal?

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Yasin Panwala

Staff asked 3 years ago

It’s all a thing of what you scrape and how you scrape it.
It’s pretty similar to taking pictures with your phone.
There is no law or rules banning web scraping.
But you can’t scrape everything.
In short, the action of web scraping is not illegal.
When we use Web scrapping we have to follow some rules that need to be followed

For web scraping example, you can see my article Fill Form Data Using Web Scrapping and C#

— Parth Mandaliya replied 3 years ago

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Jaydip Mali

Staff answered 3 years ago

If you’re familiar with the term “web scraping,” you’ve probably come across the question, “Is web scraping lawful or illegal?” So, let’s talk about it. If you look attentively, you’ll see that in today’s world, data is a company’s most valuable asset! Even the most influential companies, such as Facebook, Amazon, and Uber, are able to dominate because of the huge amounts of data they possess. What if someone quickly takes all of this information from the owner’s website? Web scraping is used in this situation.

Is Web Scraping Legal? - YouTube

Web scraping is the process of utilizing software or scripts to scrape data and specific information from websites. The retrieved data can be saved in various formats, including SQL, Excel, and HTML. There are a variety of web scraping tools available, as well as libraries that allow web scraping in several languages. Python is regarded as one of the best languages for web scraping because of features such as a large library, ease of usage, and dynamic typing. Python libraries that facilitate web scraping include Beautiful Soup and Scrapy.

You might be wondering why someone would try to extract so much data from a website or what the advantages of Web Scraping are. As previously said, data is extremely valuable to businesses, therefore gaining access to it through Web Scraping may be used for a variety of purposes, including –

Competitive Analysis
Lead generation
Contact Information Accessibility
Brand Monitoring
Social Media Scraping
Research and Development
Extracting Financial Statement, etc.

So, let’s get back to the original question: Is it legal to scrape the internet? Web scraping is technically not an unlawful procedure, but the choice is based on a number of other considerations, including how you intend to use the gathered data. or Are you infringing on the ‘Terms & Conditions’? etc. Consider the following scenario:

Assume you let someone access your home by the Main Gate in general, but the individual prefers to cross the Boundary Wall. So, are you going to let this individual into your home? Similarly, most websites’ data is readily accessible to the public because it is allowed to save that data in your system for personal use. However, if you intend to use it as your own without the owner’s permission and in violation of the ‘Terms & Conditions’ Guidelines, it will be considered illegal. However, while the legislation regulating web scraping is not clear, there are still several restrictions that you may be subject to if you engage in unauthorized web scraping. The following are a few of them:

Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
Violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)
Breach of Contract
Copyright Infringement
Trespassing, etc.

LinkedIn Vs HiQ:

One of the major legal fights involving data scraping is ‘LinkedIn vs HiQ.’ HiQ is a data analytics company that was involved in a legal battle with LinkedIn after the latter sent HiQ an official letter demanding that it stop scraping the site. However, LinkedIn was hit back by HiQ, who claimed that the data on LinkedIn is available to anybody who accesses the site and that scraping publicly available data is not illegal. However, LinkedIn was not pleased with the final verdict, as the court ordered the business to stop blocking HiQ’s requests to scrape data from publicly available LinkedIn profiles. This case is unique in that, unlike other Web Scraping legal cases, the court did not rule in favor of the firm whose data was scraped.

Facebook Vs Power Ventures:

A well-known legal battle involving data scraping is ‘Facebook Vs Power Ventures.’ Facebook has filed a lawsuit alleging that Power Ventures Inc. obtained user data from Facebook and used it on their website. Facebook was accused of breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, according to Facebook. According to Facebook, Power Ventures allegedly broke the CAN-SPAM Act by utilizing Facebook’s identity to gather user information. Power Ventures argued in defense that Facebook’s DMCA allegation was insufficient to be examined. They further claimed that the requirement for illegal access was not met because the users were accessing their own data on Facebook via the Power Ventures platform. Despite these considerations, the court ruled in favour of Facebook.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten to the point, whether web scraping is lawful or illegal depends on how you scrape and use the data. Take a look at some of the tactics you should use when scouring the web —

In the case of provided API, try to avoid Web Scraping
Keep an interval of around 12-15 seconds in between your requests
Don’t use the scraped data for commercial purposes without the consent of the original owner.
Always go through the Terms of Service and follow the policies.
If someone has put some restrictions to access their data, it will be good to ask for permission from them before going further.

From the foregoing explanation, it may be established that web scraping is not unlawful in and of itself, but it should be done ethically. Web scraping, when done correctly, can assist us in making the most of the internet, with Google Search Engine serving as the most prominent example. As a result, do not provide the target site owner with any excuse to block or even sue you for any wrongdoings, and also respect the Terms of Service (ToS) of other sites.

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