It was five years ago when I first published the comprehensive guide to legal issues with web scraping. It was just after the seminal hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn case where a few folks wrote articles proclaiming that “web scraping is legal.” And I thought the world needed a more nuanced analysis of the legal issues … Read More
In August 2023, I wrote a blog post that was unusual for me. Rather than cover a case or a particular legal issue, I wrote a long rant about hypocrisy in the legal world of web scraping. It became perhaps the most popular thing I have ever written. To this day, it is one of … Read More
Every time I drive my car, I follow the same algorithm for how fast I drive. If I’m driving on a highway or an open road, I drive between 6 and 9 miles over the speed limit. If I’m driving in a neighborhood or near a school, I drive 3 to 4 miles over the … Read More
Date of Last Update: July 20, 2023 When I first published this guide, in the summer of 2020, I wrote that the recent trend had been toward greater permissiveness with web scraping. That sentence isn’t as true today as the day when I first wrote it. Recent policy trends have wavered. The few jurisdictions where … Read More
Plenty of people have written about whether AI is going to replace lawyers. Leaving that question aside, not enough people have focused on the way widespread use of AI is going be used as evidence in legal proceedings. Throughout modern times, when people had legal questions, they asked lawyers. And if they formed an attorney-client … Read More
I was recently in a high-stakes negotiation with a skilled negotiator. At the outset of the negotiation, he performed a few small gestures that made the parties feel comfortable with one another, and then he began his negotiation with a request: He asked us “to assume positive intent.” I smiled and nodded. It’s a nice … Read More
Automation is everywhere. From robotic process automation (RPA) to AI-driven decision-making, businesses are integrating automation into their decision-making processes like never before. However, with these advancements come critical legal considerations that companies must address or face the wrath regulators—or worse, plaintiffs’ lawyers! One general principle that businesses should understand is that automation will usually be … Read More
Probably around half of all internet traffic comes from bots or scraping. Despite that fact, there isn’t much guidance out there for how to comply with privacy laws when scraping. Notably, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) impose strict compliance requirements on companies collecting, storing, and processing user … Read More
2024 is going to be a massive year for web-scraping legal decisions. There will be substantive decisions in all the major generative AI cases. Big-name scraper Bright Data is in legal battles with Twitter and Facebook. Ryanair and Booking.com are locked in a legal struggle. And so on. With all that, I suspect this is … Read More
It is common knowledge among lawyers that online platforms have broad leeway to enforce arbitration agreements in their online ToS. But one wrinkle that is perhaps not as well known is that many companies selectively draft their online contracts to compel arbitration when they prefer it, while still allowing them to avail themselves of traditional … Read More
Online contracts are a farce. Everyone knows they’re a farce. But every year, more areas of the law are consumed by the law of online contracts. — In 2011, Marc Andreesen wrote a landmark blog post called, “Why software is eating the world.” It was so prescient that the phrase is now embedded in the … Read More
The short answer is: That’s not what they were designed for. The longer answer is that you shouldn’t use a standard SAFE note to raise capital with an LLC, because it specifically contemplates a type of investment that LLCs cannot do. Namely, a priced, preferred stock round with a venture-capital firm. Most venture capital firms … Read More
