The legal implications of screen scraping

2009-11-11

There have been a number of cases surrounding the use of data in recent times and issues involving screen scraping have made their way into the courtroom on more than one occasion. While taking legal action could be something of a last resort for some firms, there are implications that companies may want to consider.

Legal firm DMH Stallard recently held a seminar named Web Scraping: Business Tool or Data Theft? which was attended by a number of senior executives from businesses that place large amounts of data on the web, such as Yell.com, easyJet and EMI Group. They came together to talk about the legal issues surrounding scraping.

The law firm pointed out that data scraping was being carried out on a large scale. A straightforward online search shows numerous free scraping services, according to DMH Stallard, which said that it is simpler for some to just copy someone else's data than to collect or create it themselves.

One of the participating attendees of the seminar, Nigel Ridgeon, head of information analysis at Yell.com, pointed out that his company had taken legal action in the past.

"Providers will become more conscious of the value of their content and, in my opinion, less proprietary content will be available free as longer-term business models develop and I expect more providers will set up anti-scraping systems and processes," Mr Ridgeon commented.

Frank Jennings, partner in DMH Stallard's technology group, was on hand to chair the seminar. He introduced the issues up for discussion and then went on to talk about the potential threat of scraping.

"Data scraping is the online menace that data and content owners are now grappling with. We have made a strategic decision to stay on top of this quickly changing issue and are able to advise clients as to the most commercially beneficial option for their business covering practical and legal measures," he added.

Organisations that want to take any screen scraping issues they have could head to such firms as DMH Stallard. Its technology group has specialist lawyers who have experience in the technology sector in both legal and commercial positions. Its approach is to provide advice instead of options, as it believes this helps clients make the best business decisions.

However, many firms may want to stop screen scraping in its tracks before any court action is necessary. Marino Zini, managing director of Sentor Managed Security Services UK, was also present at the seminar and he pointed to the anti-scraping technology that allows businesses to constantly detect and block scraping and data theft in real time.

Sentor offers companies anti-scraping software named ASSASSIN, which stands for Automated Assessment Anti Scraping Surveillance Network. It can detect and block the most sophisticated scraper in real time and Sentor guarantees that all scraping activity on a website will be blocked within 45 minutes of detection with this system in place. This will, in turn, effectively protect the firm's intellectual property.

Of course, some screen scraping may not be malicious. Another attendee at the DMH Stallard seminar was Jason Woodford, chief executive of SiteVisibility. He pointed out that it may be possible for companies to gain from others scraping their data.

"The primary opportunity is to use the scrapers as a backlink distribution channel, so if you ensure that your content contains url references back to your site, when your content is scraped and placed elsewhere on the web, the scraping 'bot' will have created a nice backlink for you on their own website," he explained.