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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 31 2019, @06:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the Arachnophobia dept.

"Come on, I worked so hard on this project! And this is publicly accessible data! There's certainly a way around this, right? Or else, I did all of this for nothing... Sigh..."

Yep - this is what I said to myself, just after realizing that my ambitious data analysis project could get me into hot water. I intended to deploy a large-scale web crawler to collect data from multiple high profile websites. And then I was planning to publish the results of my analysis for the benefit of everybody. Pretty noble, right? Yes, but also pretty risky.

Interestingly, I've been seeing more and more projects like mine lately. And even more tutorials encouraging some form of web scraping or crawling. But what troubles me is the appalling widespread ignorance on the legal aspect of it.

So this is what this post is all about - understanding the possible consequences of web scraping and crawling. Hopefully, this will help you to avoid any potential problem.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. I'm simply a programmer who happens to be interested in this topic. You should seek out appropriate professional advice regarding your specific situation.

https://benbernardblog.com/web-scraping-and-crawling-are-perfectly-legal-right/


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 31 2019, @05:50PM (1 child)

    by Freeman (732) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @05:50PM (#873635) Journal

    Blackmail may also be considered a form of extortion.[1] Although the two are generally synonymous, extortion is the taking of personal property by threat of future harm.[6] Blackmail is the use of threat to prevent another from engaging in a lawful occupation and writing libelous letters or letters that provoke a breach of the peace, as well as use of intimidation for purposes of collecting an unpaid debt.[7]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail [wikipedia.org]

    That's not what they were describing. They aren't trying to do anything harmful or injurious to the party and they aren't threatening them. They just outlined what they might do in defense, if the other party decided to sue them, for no good reason.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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  • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:37PM

    by Osamabobama (5842) on Wednesday July 31 2019, @07:37PM (#873693)

    That's not what they were describing. They aren't trying to do anything harmful or injurious to the party and they aren't threatening them. They just outlined what they might do in defense, if the other party decided to sue them, for no good reason.

    There are too many pronouns to follow. I will replace them as I understand this situation, as it relates to blackmail:

    That's not what (they - the blogger) were describing. (They - the website scrapers) aren't trying to do anything harmful or injurious to the party and (they - the website scrapers) aren't threatening (them - the scraped website operators). (They - the website scrapers) just outlined what (they - the website scrapers) might do in defense, if the (other party - the scraped website operators) decided to sue them, for no good reason.

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.