Web Scraping for Research: Legal, Ethical, Institutional, and Scientific Considerations

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive framework for social science researchers on the legal, ethical, and scientific considerations of web scraping, especially as data access restrictions increase due to AI and platform policies.

Contribution

It offers a detailed overview of current regulations and practical recommendations for conducting ethically and legally compliant web scraping in research.

Findings

Current regulatory environment impacts data collection methods.

Guidelines for ethical and legal web scraping practices.

Strategies to mitigate risks and enhance research impact.

Abstract

Scientists across disciplines often use data from the internet to conduct research, generating valuable insights about human behavior. However, as generative AI relying on massive text corpora becomes increasingly valuable, platforms have greatly restricted access to data through official channels. As a result, researchers will likely engage in more web scraping to collect data, introducing new challenges and concerns for researchers. This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for web scraping in social science research for U.S.-based researchers, examining the legal, ethical, institutional, and scientific factors that researchers should consider when scraping the web. We present an overview of the current regulatory environment impacting when and how researchers can access, collect, store, and share data via scraping. We then provide researchers with recommendations to conduct scraping in a scientifically legitimate and ethical manner. We aim to equip researchers with the relevant information to mitigate risks and maximize the impact of their research amidst this evolving data access landscape.