4 ms·
Who says robots.txt is legally binding? Where's the Sherman Antitrust analysis?I'm more confused than before.
by khelavastr 10mo ago
Who says robots.txt is legally binding? Where's the Sherman Antitrust analysis?I'm more confused than before.
- bluGill 10mo agoThe courts say. With this as a long standing tradition they are likely to agree.
- hn_acker 10mo ago> The courts say. Do you have an example of a court saying that violating robots.txt violates an existing law? In Ziff Davis v. OpenAI [1], the District Court for the Southern District of New York found that violating robots.txt does not violate DMCA section 1201(a) (formally 17 U.S. Code § 1201(a), which prohibits circumvention of technological protection measures of copyrighted content [2]). It's my understanding that robots.txt started as a socially-enforced rule and that it remains legally voluntary. [1] https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2025/12/are-robots-txt-instructions-legally-binding-ziff-davis-v-openai.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2025/12/are-robots-txt... [2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201