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Scraping A Public Website Doesn’t Violate the CFAA, Ninth Circuit (Mostly) Holds

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Dissent

Orin Kerr writes:

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down a groundbreaking decision today on the federal computer hacking law,  the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).  In HiQ Labs v. LinkedIn, the court held that scraping a public website is likely not a CFAA violation.

Under the new decision, violating the CFAA requires “circumvent[ing] a computer’s generally applicable rules regarding access permissions, such as username and password requirements,” that thus “demarcate[]” the information “as private using such an authorization system.”  If the data is available to the general public, the court says, it’s not an unauthorized access to view it—even when the computer owner has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the visitor telling them not to visit the website.

This is a major case that will be of interest to a lot of people and a lot of companies.  But it’s also pretty complicated and easy to misunderstand.

Read more on Reason.

Related posts:

  • Van Buren is a Victory Against Overbroad Interpretations of the CFAA, and Protects Security Researchers
  • David Nosal sentenced; case narrowed the definition of “exceeding authorized access” under CFAA (update1)
  • DOJ’s New CFAA Policy is a Good Start But Does Not Go Far Enough to Protect Security Researchers
  • Password-sharing case divides Ninth Circuit in Nosal II
Category: Commentaries and AnalysesFederalOf Note

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