From the article: "[T]he 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 key phrase is "publicly accessible." This wasn't that. The scraping was done by automating Facebook accounts, which have terms of service, which forbid scraping.

ToS/EULAs make a big difference. They're the reason Blizzard could shut down bnetd's StarCraft server. They're why no one can legally reverse engineer Oracle to create a drop-in replacement, despite interoperability provisions.

More and more platforms are putting the majority of your user-generated content behind auth walls with ToS because that's how they prevent competitors from swiping it.

> ToS/EULAs make a big difference. They're the reason Blizzard could shut down bnetd's StarCraft server. They're why no one can legally reverse engineer Oracle to create a drop-in replacement, despite interoperability provisions.

Strictly referencing EULAs for user-owned copies of software here, not ToS:

That is not true. The Blizzard court clearly erred in not considering unconscionability when analyzing the EULA. As for Oracle, the interoperability provisions are what overrides that part of the EULA.

Does it go into detail about the actual meaning of "publicly accessible"? Because most content on Facebook/Instagram requires any valid login (as opposed to a specific account) and that data people intend to be public (especially on Insta).

In this case, the account requirement would be a technicality and the data, for all intents and purposes, would still be considered "publicly accessible" if anyone with an account can access it.

Putting a login screen that any public member can bypass isn't private information. Private info would be Onlyfans videos. So far there is no such feature on Instagram

"Legal" doesn't make it ethical, nor does it shield you from liability if you willfully violate contract law (terms of service)