Significativa decisione del trib. del distretto nord della California con sentenza 23 gennaio 2024, caso n. 23-cv-00077-EMC, Meta v. Bright Data, giudice Chen: legittima lo scraping (grattamento o raschiatura, più o meno) di dati dagli account del gruppo Meta.
Il succo è che è lecito raccolgiere i dati disposnibili anche senza loggarsi (logged-off public data): non si viola alcujna regola contrattujale dato che non si agisce in veste di contraente di Meta. E Meta non ha provato che fossero stato raccolti.
Anche se Bright Data aveva account Meta, i dati grattati erano solo quelli publicily available: “c. Bright Data’s logged-out scraping is unrelated to the purpose of its accounts The fact that Bright Data had Facebook and Instagram accounts when it scraped is entirely incidental and unrelated to its scraping. There is no evidence that Bright Data used the accounts or any information from the accounts to facilitate scraping of publicly accessible data. It is not disputed that Bright Data maintained the accounts for an entirely collateral purpose—to engage in its own advertising on Facebook and Instagram—which was unrelated to its scraping of public data. When Bright Data scraped data, it did so without logging in and using its Meta accounts; instead, it was acting in the exact same capacity as any outside non-subscribing visitor trying to overcome Meta’s anti-bot technology. Therefore, even though Bright Data could technically be characterized as a “user” of Facebook and Instagram inasmuch as it maintained accounts on those platforms, there is a strong and compelling argument that Bright Data was not “using” Facebook as contemplated by the Terms when it scraped public data while not logged-in”.
(notizia e link dal blog di Eric Goldman, nel quale ora Kieran McCarthy scrive che Meta ha rinunciato all’appello per motivi sostanzialmente reputazionali