Author: SS Technology

Path-Breaking Court Decision on Scraping –Scraping Public Data from any Website without Permission isn’t Illegal or a Crime

hiQ Labs vs LinkedIn Case on Web Scraping:

Two years later when a lower court appropriately decided that LinkedIn can’t use CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act)to stop third-parties from scraping the website, California’s 9th Circuit appeals court has given a judgment that it’s not unlawful or illegal to scrape data from the public websites without taking prior approval and that’s a huge victory for a small firm like hiQ.

The decision comes after an extended legal clash between a small data analytics firm named hiQ and LinkedIn, a Microsoft-owned company. This popular social site sent a cease-and-desist letter to HiQ, commanding it to stop scraping the LinkedIn site. In the counter suit, hiQ sued LinkedIn for preventing it from scraping the public content from the website. The 9th Circuit has given the decision on the side of hiQ, saying that scraping any public website does not interrupt the CFAA, even if the website owner disallows with the cease-and-desist letter; this language strongly advocates that CFAA only affects to bypass the authentication.

While discussing the CFAA, this 9th Circuit panel has strongly suggested that CFAA applies only to prevent bypassing authentication and not to halt companies from blocking the companies or people they don’t like.

For all the reasons, it looks like the CFAA’s prohibition about using a computer “without permission” gets violated if a person avoids a computer’s usually applicable rules about accessing permissions like username & password requirements, for accessing a computer. It is expected that when any computer network allows public access of its data, the user’s access that openly available data which won’t come under constitute access without the authorization under CFAA and the data that hiQ wants to access doesn’t own by the LinkedIn as well as hasn’t been determined by LinkedIn in private using an approval system.

After that hiQ has raised severe questions about if LinkedIn may raise the CFAA to prevent hiQ’s possibly commendable tortious interfering claim. They note that individuals who view themselves as a victim of the data scraping are not without any option, although the CFAA doesn’t get applied the state law invade to possessions claims might still be accessible.

And other sources of action like misappropriation, copyright infringement, conversion, undeserved enrichment, breach of privacy, or breach of contract may also include. E.g., Associated Press v. Meltwater U.S. Holdings, Inc., 931 F. Supp. 2d 537, 561 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (holds that a software company’s bearing in scraping as well as aggregating the copyrighted news articles wasn’t threatened by the fair use).

Addition from the 9th Circuit Panel:
The House Report 1984 on the CFAA openly analogized the bearing prohibited by the section 1030 for forced entry:

“It’s notable that section 1030 copes with the “unauthorized access” idea of computer frauds rather than merely the use of computers. Therefore, the conduct forbidden is equivalent to ‘breaking & entering’ . . . .’”.

Similarly, Senator Jeremiah Denton considered the CFAA as the statute designed for preventing unlawful intrusion to distant computers, seeing that

“this bill makes clear that illegal access to any Government computer is an intrude offense, as certainly as if the lawbreaker had inputted a regulated Government compound with no proper authorization.”

11 132 Cong. Rec. 27639 (1986) (emphasis added). While considering the amendments to CFAA a couple of years later, this House again interrelated computer intrusion to entering and breaking. See H.R. Rep. No. 99-612, at 5–6 (1986) (labeling “the increasing group of electronic trespassers,” that intrude “just as if they ruined a window as well as entered into the home whereas the inhabitants were away”).

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is the Cyber Security bill of the United States which was passed in 1984 as are vision to the present computer fraud law that had been incorporated in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act 1984.

Introduction:
We are in the era of information. The more information an organization has, the stronger it is. Many opportunities are there to extract information thanks to technology. Now, we can find any information in the blink of an eye. All this information is arranged on a website. A web directory is a record where we can store websites. It helps us to find websites and links according to our requirements. On the other hand, Data extraction is a process to gather data from various sources of the Web. Data extraction from web directories helps to develop the productivity of a company. Various industries are using data extraction to develop their infrastructure, management policies and offerings.

What is a Web directory:
A web directory is a manual listing of websites in an organized way. The entire directory is hand-picked and not by software cause an actual person classifies which websites should get listed on a per-site basis. Using a web directory, we can find the title and content description of various websites. There are two ways of doing it. The first one is web browsing and the other is searching. Having a search engine, we can search throughout the website.

Method of Data Extraction from Web Directory:
You can gather the contact information of your customers and prospects using web directories data extraction. You need to take the following steps to extract data from web directories.
• The first step is to crawl through the web directories using a crawler. You can also use customised scrapers according to your requirements.
• Now, you need to define the search criteria to fetch your desired fields such as email, contact information, company name, industry, address etc.
• Export the data in the desired format.
• Integrate the data according to your client’s requirements to promote his business and services.

Conclusion:
The extraction process of data from various web directories is a complex job. You need data mining experts and scrapers to do it accurately. Also, there are multiple methods to extract data from directories with their advantages and disadvantages. Hence it becomes tougher. Don’t worry, SS Technology is here to help you to make your job easier. We have years of experience to extract data from web directories. We are skilled in intelligent extraction methods and deep crawling to extract data from every kind of web directory. So, visit SS Technology and check out our services to book a demo now.

Introduction:
Data extraction is a process to collect data from many websites using scrapers & mining tools. Extracting data has become crucial because it reduces human error by automating the data mining procedure. Different companies are using data extraction to develop their business. It also helps them to serve the best offers to their customers. Hence, The benefits of data extraction have also impacted the tourism industry. Tourism companies are improving their management & hospitalities using data extraction. Extracting information from various travel & tourism websites give customer insights to improve the facility and service. It can help to get an edge over competitors.

Importance of data extraction in the tourism industry:

• People love to travel & tourism companies help them from getting accommodation to set up the travel plan. Using Data extraction, travel agencies can get more information regarding new travel destinations where their customers are wishing to travel. It helps them to create the perfect travel plan and essentially cut the competition.
• By extracting data, hotels and travel agencies can sell the right offer in front of the proper traveler to maximize profits. They can able to identify the proper channel and perfect price to confirm the sale.
• By extracting and analyzing data from other travel agencies, your tourism company can declare new packages to win more customers and defect other competitors.

Methods of data extraction in the tourism industry –
Data extraction methods are very important to know. We need to collect data from authentic sources and examine them. While extracting data you need to choose proper software such as scraper, crawler.

• Now, extract the information about the customer’s willingness.

• Gather data about hotel system, address, customer review, foods, hotel rooms and facilities of other tourism companies.

• After that process, process the data according to demand.

• Use data visualization tools and software to export them as pictures, figures, and graphs. It will be very helpful for your company to identify the current trend.

Conclusion:
All in all, it is a tough job. It has to be done with a lot of patience and it is time-dependent. But SS Technology can help you to make your job easier. SS technology takes the challenge to deliver you the best outcome. So, take our help to extract data from the tourism industry. Looks amazing and exciting Right? So visit order now and conquer your competitors.