Cyberside Chats: Everyone wants to be Batman. Hacking Back & Cybersecurity Law
Looking back at 2021 and ahead to 2022
Monthly Minute | Protecting Against Data Scrapers
Death of Activist Aaron Swartz Could Spur Changes to Computer Fraud & Abuse Act
Employer’s Takeover of Former CEO’s LinkedIn Account Lawful Under CFAA
In recent years there has been a great demand for information about job listings, company reviews and employment data. Recruiters, consultants, analysts and employment-related service providers, amongst others, are...more
2022 provided companies with further clarity and insight regarding legal claims that might be viable to stop data (or web) scraping and those that likely won’t work. Data scraping continues to become an increasingly popular...more
Following up on our April 27, 2022 post, Data Scraping Deemed Legal in Certain Circumstances, the most significant data scraping lawsuit has finally come to an end. After six years of litigation, LinkedIn Corp. and hiQ Labs,...more
Pandora’s Virtual Try-On Tool Leads to BIPA Class Complaint - On November 15, 2022, a group of plaintiffs brought a purported class action against Pandora Jewelry LLC, claiming that its virtual try-on tool violates...more
UPDATE: On December 8, 2022, the court issued an order granting the Consent Judgment and Permanent Injunction. On December 6, 2022, the parties in the long-running litigation between now-defunct data analytics company hiQ...more
On November 15, 2022, a California district court declined to dismiss a declaratory judgment action brought by a data scraper, 3taps, Inc. (“3taps”), against LinkedIn Corp. (“LinkedIn”). (3taps, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., No....more
On November 4, 2022, a California district court took up the parties cross-motions for summary judgment in the long-running scraping litigation involving social media site LinkedIn Corp.’s (“LinkedIn”) challenge to data...more
On remand from the Supreme Court of the United States, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed its own 2019 opinion that preliminarily enjoined a professional networking platform from denying a data analytics...more
On April 18, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation in which the court clarified its position on an important topic: whether the common practice of data “web scraping” can create...more
In September 2019, the Ninth Circuit held that hiQ Labs, Inc.’s (“hiQ”) collection and use of information that LinkedIn users shared on their public profiles did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) because...more
On April 18, 2022, the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed its narrow interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act’s (CFAA) “without authorization” prong in a data scraping dispute between hiQ and LinkedIn. The opinion upheld a...more
Over two and a half years ago, this column analyzed a Ninth Circuit case titled HiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corporation, in which the Court agreed with a lower court that had issued a preliminary injunction against LinkedIn...more
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in HiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn that automated web scraping of publicly accessible websites does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), even if the website owner...more
As we have previously discussed, claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) are often asserted as a means of protecting online data from unwanted data scraping activity. The scope and application of the CFAA,...more
On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit earlier this week again affirmed the lower court’s order preliminarily enjoining LinkedIn Corp. (“LinkedIn”) from blocking data analytics company hiQ Labs, Inc.’s...more
In a much-anticipated ruling this week addressing the confluence of website scraping and computer hacking law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit became the latest federal court to limit the reach of the Computer...more
On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed a California district court’s order preliminarily enjoining LinkedIn from denying hiQ Labs, a data analytics company, access to...more
This Legal Alert is a follow up to our June 3, 2021 Legal Alert, “Supreme Court Narrows Scope of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” and provides an overview of relevant legal developments related to the topic as well as...more
On June 14, 2021, in a closely-watched dispute involving the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Supreme Court granted LinkedIn Corp.’s (“LinkedIn”) petition for certiorari filed in the hiQ web scraping case. It...more
Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court decided Van Buren v. United States. In that decision, the Court took a narrow interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), holding that the CFAA “does not...more
On June 14, the United States Supreme Court issued a summary disposition in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp. granting certiorari, vacating the Ninth Circuit’s previous judgment, and remanding the case for additional...more
Last week, the Italian data protection authority (the “GPDP”) opened an investigation after reports that a dataset allegedly containing data compiled from 500 million LinkedIn profiles and other websites was available for...more
Last week, hiQ Labs, Inc. (“hiQ”) filed its brief urging the Supreme Court to deny LinkedIn Corp.’s (“LinkedIn”) petition for a writ of certiorari in the Ninth Circuit’s blockbuster ruling in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp.,...more
The U.S. Supreme Court is requesting that startup hiQ Labs Inc. respond to LinkedIn’s request for intervention of a ruling in the Ninth Circuit. In its petition for writ of certiorari filed in March, LinkedIn claimed that hiQ...more
This past week, LinkedIn filed a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit’s blockbuster ruling in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., 938 F.3d 985 (9th Cir. 2019). The case...more