- A federal judge in California has dismissed a data scraping lawsuit brought by Elon Musk's Mr. X against Israel's Bright Data.
- X claimed that Bright Data was scraping data by using “sophisticated technical means to circumvent X's anti-scraping technology.”
- Meta previously filed suit against Bright Data, but also lost.
A federal judge in California dismissed the lawsuit brought by the United States. Elon Musk's X lawsuit against Israel's Bright Data, a lawsuit regarding the scraping of public online data and its proper use.
X, formerly Twitter, claims that the company “scraped data from X” and sold it “using elaborate technical measures to circumvent Company X's anti-scraping techniques.” I sued Bright Data. X also alleged that the company violated its terms of service and copyright.
Data scraping occurs when automated programs scour publicly accessible websites to collect data. This data can later be used for a wide range of purposes, including training artificial intelligence models and targeting online ads. A 2022 ruling that ended a long-running legal battle over LinkedIn says that practices that involve scraping publicly accessible data are generally legal in the United States.
The lawsuit, filed in Dallas County, seeks more than $1 million in damages from unnamed defendants for “unlawfully collecting data relating to Texas residents.”
In dismissing the lawsuit, Judge William Alsup wrote, “While providing a safe haven, Company X exercises its right to exclude copyright owners and collects fees from anyone who wishes to extract and copy the content of User I want it to go both ways.”
Giving social networks complete control over the collection and use of public web data “risks the possibility of creating an information monopoly that harms the public interest,” the judge said. He added that X “doesn't care about protecting the privacy of X users” and is “happy to allow X users' content to be extracted and copied as long as a fee is paid.”
Representatives for Company X did not respond to requests for comment.
Meta previously filed a lawsuit against Bright Data, but also lost.
BrightData said in an emailed statement that its victory over Meta and X shows that public information online “belongs to all of us and any attempt to deny public access will fail.” said.
“What is happening now is unprecedented, and its impact will impact business in general, research, AI, and more,” the company said in a statement.
Bright Data says it only scrapes public data that anyone can view without logging in. At the time of filing the lawsuit, X had made the information collected by Bright Data available to anyone.
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