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Interesting to compare this to the recent LinkedIn case that favored web scrapers. Similar techniques, only difference is Uber's approach likely had a material
by brd 9y ago
Interesting to compare this to the recent LinkedIn case that favored web scrapers. Similar techniques, only difference is Uber's approach likely had a material impact on Lyft's service and cost.
I think I'm okay with this trajectory of scraping being legally acceptable so long as no meaningful harm is done to the entity being scraped.
- _jal 9y agoThis is generally how I've thought about it, too. Intent clearly also matters, and is easy to infer in many cases - scraping information looks quite a bit different than feeding a competitor's dispatch database with garbage events. Although I would love to hear a creative lawyer's story about how that was actually benign. If you're scraping data, make sure you go out of your way to be nice to their servers. With some fragile sites, it is easier than you think to knock them over, and you really want it to appear that you're going out of your way to not cause problems. (Also, look for another role - maintaining scrapers is miserable.)