Spiders and Crawlers and Bots, Oh My: The Economic Efficiency and Public Policy of Contracts that Restrict Data Collection

TL;DR

This paper examines the legal and economic implications of contracts that restrict automated data collection by bots, especially in the context of metasites and shopbots, questioning their effectiveness and desirability.

Contribution

It analyzes the potential of contract law to regulate data collection robots and evaluates the economic efficiency and policy considerations of such restrictions.

Findings

Legal restrictions via contracts can effectively limit data collection by bots.

Current technological measures are insufficient to prevent automated data scraping.

Legal cases suggest contracts may be a viable alternative to technological barriers.

Abstract

Recent trends reveal the search by companies for a legal hook to prevent the undesired and unauthorized copying of information posted on websites. In the center of this controversy are metasites, websites that display prices for a variety of vendors. Metasites function by implementing shopbots, which extract pricing data from other vendors' websites. Technological mechanisms have proved unsuccessful in blocking shopbots, and in response, websites have asserted a variety of legal claims. Two recent cases, which rely on the troublesome trespass to chattels doctrine, suggest that contract law may provide a less demanding legal method of preventing the search of websites by data robots. If blocking collection of pricing data is as simple as posting an online contract, the question arises whether this end result is desirable and legally viable.