Web Scraping Legal Compliance: Common Questions Answered

Web scraping sits in a gray area of law that makes many developers uncomfortable. The legal landscape has evolved significantly in recent years, with court rulings in the US, EU, and elsewhere clarifying what is and is not allowed. This FAQ covers the legal fundamentals every developer should understand before building a web scraper.

Key Takeaways

• Scraping public data is generally legal in the US, but terms of service violations can create liability
• The hiQ vs. LinkedIn ruling (2022) established that scraping publicly available data does not violate the CFAA
• Personal data is heavily regulated under GDPR, CCPA, and similar frameworks
• Using a compliant scraping API like SearchHive reduces legal risk with built-in safeguards

Is Web Scraping Legal?

The short answer: in most jurisdictions, scraping publicly accessible data is legal. The longer answer depends on what you scrape, how you scrape it, and what you do with the data.

In the United States, the landmark hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn decision (2022) by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that scraping publicly available data does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). This means that if data is accessible without logging in, scraping it is generally not a federal crime.

However, this does not mean anything goes. You still need to consider:

• Terms of Service (ToS): Violating a website's ToS can create breach-of-contract liability in some jurisdictions
• Copyright: Scraped content may be copyrighted by the original publisher
• Trespass to chattels: Excessive scraping can be considered a form of digital trespass
• State laws: Some states have their own computer access laws that may apply

In the EU, the GDPR adds significant complexity around personal data, even if the data is publicly available.

What Is the hiQ vs. LinkedIn Ruling?

In 2022, the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that hiQ Labs could legally scrape LinkedIn's public profiles. LinkedIn had sent a cease-and-desist letter, but the court ruled that:

1. Public data is public -- requiring permission to collect it would undermine the open web
2. The CFAA targets unauthorized access, not unauthorized use of data
3. LinkedIn's ToS could not override federal law

This is the most important legal precedent for web scraping in the US. It provides a strong defense for scraping publicly accessible data, though it is binding precedent only in the Ninth Circuit (Western US).

Can I Get Sued for Web Scraping?

Yes, you can. Even if scraping itself is legal, companies can sue on other grounds:

• Breach of contract: If you agreed to the website's ToS and violated it
• Copyright infringement: Republishing scraped content without a license
• Trespass to chattels: If your scraper causes measurable harm to the server
• Violation of automated access restrictions: Bypassing technical barriers (though hiQ weakens this argument)

Facebook (Meta) has been particularly aggressive in pursuing scraping lawsuits, even against individuals. In 2023-2024, Meta filed multiple lawsuits against scrapers who collected public profile data.

How Does GDPR Affect Web Scraping?

The GDPR applies to any processing of personal data of EU residents, regardless of where the processing happens. Key principles that affect scrapers:

• Lawful basis: You need a legal basis to process personal data (consent, legitimate interest, etc.)
• Data minimization: Only collect what you need
• Purpose limitation: Only use data for stated purposes
• Right to erasure: Individuals can request their data be deleted
• Accountability: You must be able to demonstrate compliance

Practically, this means:

• Scraping names, emails, phone numbers, or any personally identifiable information from EU websites requires careful legal analysis
• Publicly available personal data is still personal data under GDPR
• You must have a documented lawful basis for each data field you collect

For non-personal data (product prices, weather data, stock information, etc.), GDPR does not apply.

What About CCPA and Other Privacy Laws?

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) gives California residents similar rights to GDPR. Other US states have followed with their own privacy laws:

• CCPA/CPRA (California): Applies to businesses meeting revenue or data-volume thresholds
• VCDPA (Virginia): Effective 2023, similar to CCPA
• CPA (Colorado): Effective 2023, similar framework
• Other states: Connecticut, Utah, Iowa, and more have enacted privacy laws

The practical impact: if your scraper collects data about identifiable individuals from any of these jurisdictions, you may be subject to privacy regulations regardless of where your business is located.

What Data Can I Safely Scrape?

Data with the lowest legal risk:

• Product prices and availability: E-commerce price monitoring is well-established
• Real estate listings: Public records and MLS data
• Weather and environmental data: Government-published, often has open data licenses
• Stock and financial data: Publicly traded company information
• News and article metadata: Headlines, publication dates, bylines
• Sports statistics: Game scores, player stats, schedules

Data with higher risk:

• Personal profiles: Names, photos, bios, social connections
• Contact information: Emails, phone numbers, addresses
• User reviews with personal details: May contain PII
• Health-related data: Subject to HIPAA in the US
• Children's data: Subject to COPPA in the US, stricter GDPR rules in EU

How Does SearchHive Handle Legal Compliance?

SearchHive builds compliance considerations into its platform:

• ScrapeForge respects robots.txt generator directives by default
• Rate limiting prevents excessive requests that could constitute trespass
• Structured extraction returns clean data without unnecessary PII
• DeepDive extracts structured fields rather than raw page dumps, reducing unnecessary data collection

import requests

# ScrapeForge with built-in compliance features
response = requests.get(
    "https://api.searchhive.dev/v1/scrapeforge",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY"},
    params={
        "url": "https://example.com/products",
        "format": "structured",
        "respect_robots": True,   # Honors robots.txt
        "rate_limit": 2           # Max 2 requests per second
    }
)
data = response.json()

SearchHive's approach follows the principle of minimum necessary access: extract only the structured data you need, at reasonable rates, with respect for site operators' preferences. This is the same standard that courts have looked at favorably in scraping cases.

What Should I Include in My Scraping Terms?

If you are providing scraping services or building a scraping product, document these policies:

1. Legal basis for collection: Why you are collecting each data field
2. Data retention policy: How long you keep data and when you delete it
3. Access controls: Who can access the collected data
4. Opt-out mechanism: How individuals can request data removal
5. Compliance certifications: SOC 2, GDPR DPA, etc.

Having these documented demonstrates the "accountability" principle that GDPR and similar laws require.

How Do I Handle Robots.txt?

Robots.txt is a technical standard (not a law) that tells crawlers which pages they should not access. While ignoring robots.txt is not automatically illegal, courts have considered it as evidence of intent in some cases.

Best practice:

• Always check and respect robots.txt for general crawling
• Read and understand the specific directives (user agent parser, Disallow, Allow, Crawl-delay)
• Document your compliance: Keep logs showing you checked robots.txt before scraping
• Use APIs like ScrapeForge that handle this automatically

What Is the Difference Between Scraping and Crawling?

• Scraping: Extracting specific data from specific pages you already know about
• Crawling: Systematically discovering and following links to find pages

Crawling has higher legal risk because it involves broader, more systematic access to a site. Scraping specific, known URLs is more defensible. SearchHive's ScrapeForge is designed for targeted scraping, while its broader search capabilities work through search engine results rather than direct site crawling.

Key Legal Resources

• hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn, 2022: Ninth Circuit ruling on public data scraping
• GDPR official text: eur-lex.europa.eu
• CCPA regulations: oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa
• robots.txt specification: robotstxt.org
• CFAA text: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030

For developers building data pipelines, the safest approach is to use established scraping APIs that handle compliance considerations for you. SearchHive offers a compliant scraping platform with 500 free credits to get started. Read the docs and build your first pipeline in minutes.