On May 9, 2024, a California district court dismissed, with leave to amend, the complaint brought by social media platform X Corp. (formerly Twitter) against data provider Bright Data Ltd. (“Bright Data”) over Bright Data’s alleged scraping of publicly available data from X for use in data products sold to third parties. (X Corp. v. Bright Data Ltd., No. 23-03698 (N.D. Cal. May 9, 2024)).  Proskauer represents Bright Data in this case.  Back in January 2024, a California court in another closely-watched scraping dispute involving breach of contract claims granted summary judgment in favor of Bright Data.  Proskauer also represented Bright Data in this case.

The Bright Data cases are two of three scraping decisions issued by California District Courts this year. In March 2024, a California court dismissed breach of contract and CFAA claims asserted by X Corp. against the non-profit research and policy organization, Center for Countering Digital Hate, Inc., related to the alleged web scraping of publicly available data.  The decision has been appealed to the Ninth Circuit.