Hedge Fund Law Report Publishes Akin Gump Article on Legal Implications of Web Scraping

Hedge Fund Law Report has published the article “To Scrape or Not to Scrape: The Potential Legal Implications of Using Web Scraping for Market Research.” The article, written by Akin Gump litigation partners Douglas Rappaport and Peter Altman and associate Kelly Handschumacher, provides an overview of the evolving area of web-scraping law and practical guidance to investment advisers considering web scraping—an automated process performed by software on a website that attempts to gather relevant data or information that may be provided on the site, such as consumer product reviews or social media profile data.

The authors discuss some of the potential sources of liability for unlawful web scraping, which includes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, privacy statutes and insider trading. They then provide advice for investment managers that may engage in web scraping, noting that the law is still developing and only further court decisions and legal pronouncements will thoroughly define its parameters.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.