Re:Parler Wasn’t Hacked, and Scraping Is Not a Crime
by curryst on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @10:35AM
(#26002153)
> Weak security does not bestow the right to steal data.
It does not, but entirely absent security does give the public the right to view the data. HiQ vs LinkedIn [1] found that scraping of publicly available assets did not constitute a violation of the CFAA.
That court upheld that in order to trigger a CFAA violation, there needs to be some form of access control in place. Otherwise the data is considered public. Not only are you allowed to scrape it; Parler is not allowed to try to stop you from scraping it, unless they are willing to put the data behind a log in wall.
It does not, but entirely absent security does give the public the right to view the data. HiQ vs LinkedIn [1] found that scraping of publicly available assets did not constitute a violation of the CFAA.
That court upheld that in order to trigger a CFAA violation, there needs to be some form of access control in place. Otherwise the data is considered public. Not only are you allowed to scrape it; Parler is not allowed to try to stop you from scraping it, unless they are willing to put the data behind a log in wall.
[1] https://www.eff.org/document/hiq-v-linkedin-ninth-circuit-de...