After several weeks of handwringing about the fate of SB 1047 – the controversial AI safety bill that would have required developers of powerful AI models and entities providing the computing resources to train such models to put appropriate safeguards and policies into place to prevent critical harms – California
California Enacts Generative AI Law Addressing “Digital Replicas” of Performers
On September 17, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2602 into California law (to be codified at Cal. Lab. Code §927). The law addresses the use of “digital replicas” of performers. As defined in the law, a digital replica is:
a computer-generated, highly realistic electronic representation that is readily identifiable
Court Rules That Scraping of Public Data by Competitor Constitutes Trade Secret Misappropriation
In an ongoing dispute commenced in 2016, the Eleventh Circuit for the second time in the lifetime of the litigation considered trade secret misappropriation and related copyright claims in a scraping case between direct competitors.
The case involved plaintiff Compulife Software, Inc. (“Plaintiff” or “Compulife”) – in the business of
California Court Issues Another Noteworthy Decision Dismissing Breach of Contract and Tort Claims in Web Scraping Dispute
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
Data At Issue: FTC Focus on Browsing Information and Location Data
Since the start of the year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought actions against – and reached proposed settlements with[1] – three business ventures engaged in the collection, use and sharing of certain consumer information.
Web Publisher Seeks Injunctive Relief to Address Web Scraper’s Domain Name Maneuvers Intended to Avoid Court Order
Late last year, Chegg Inc. (“Chegg”), an online learning platform, obtained a preliminary injunction based on allegations that the various operators of the Homeworkify website (“Defendants”) – which allows users to view Chegg’s paywalled solutions without creating an account – violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). (Chegg
California Court Issues Noteworthy Decision on Breach of Contract Claims in Web Scraping Dispute
On January 23, 2024, a California district court released its opinion in a closely-watched scraping dispute between the social media platform Meta and data provider Bright Data Ltd. (“Bright Data”) over Bright Data’s alleged scraping of publicly-available data from Facebook and Instagram for use in data products sold to third
Another Web Scraping Dispute Focused on Travel Data
- Flight and travel data has always been valuable for data aggregators and online travel services and has prompted litigation over the years.
- Latest suit from Air Canada against a rewards travel search site raises some interesting liability issues under the CFAA.
- The implications of this case, if the plaintiffs are successful, could impact the legal analysis of web scraping in a variety of circumstances, including for the training of generative AI models.
In a recent post, we recounted the myriad of issues raised by recently-filed data scraping suits involving job listings, company reviews and employment data. Soon after, another interesting scraping suit was filed, this time by a major airline against an award travel search site that aggregates fare and award travel data. Air Canada alleges that Defendant Localhost LLC (“Localhost” or “Defendant”), operator of the Seats.aero website, unlawfully bypassed technical measures and violated Air Canada’s website terms when it scraped “vast amounts” of flight data without permission and purportedly caused slowdowns to Air Canada’s site and other problems. (Air Canada v. Localhost LLC, No. 23-01177 (D. Del. Filed Oct. 19, 2023)).[1]
The complaint alleges that Localhost harvested data from Air Canada’s site and systems to populate the seats.aero site, which claims to be “the fastest search engine for award travel.”
It also alleged that in addition to scraping the Air Canada website, Localhost engaged in “API scraping” by impersonating authorized requests to Air Canada’s application programming interface.
In Amended Complaint, FTC Alleges Kochava, a Data Broker, Is Collecting, Using and Disclosing “Massive Amounts” of Precise Geolocation Data
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has long expressed a concern about the potential misuse of location data. For example, in a 2022 blog post, “Location, health, and other sensitive information: FTC committed to fully enforcing the law against illegal use and sharing of highly sensitive data,” the agency termed the entire location data ecosystem “opaque” and has investigated the practices and brought enforcement actions against mobile app operators and data brokers with respect to sensitive data.
One such FTC enforcement began with an August 2022 complaint against Kochava, Inc. (“Kochava”), a digital marketing and analytics firm, seeking an order halting Kochava’s alleged acquisition and downstream sale of “massive amounts” of precise geolocation data collected from consumers’ mobile devices. In that complaint, the FTC alleged that Kochava, in its role as a data broker, collects a wealth of information about consumers and their mobile devices by, among other means, purchasing data from outside entities to sell to its own customers. Among other things, the FTC alleged that the location data provided by Kochava to its customers was not anonymized and that it was possible, using third party services, to use the geolocation data combined with other information to identify a mobile device user or owner.
In May 2023, an Idaho district court granted Kochava’s motion to dismiss the FTC’s complaint, with leave to amend. Subsequently, the FTC filed an amended complaint, and Kochava requested that the court keep the amended complaint under seal, which it did until it could rule on the merits of the parties’ arguments.
On November 3, 2023, the court granted the FTC’s motion to unseal the amended complaint, finding no “compelling reason” to keep the amended complaint under seal and rejecting Kochava’s arguments that the amended complaint’s allegations were “knowingly false” or “misleading.” (FTC v. Kochava Inc., No. 22-00377 (D. Idaho Nov. 3, 2023)). As a result, the FTC’s amended complaint has been unsealed to the public.
President Issues Sweeping Executive Order to Manage Risks of AI
On October 30, 2023, President Biden issued an “Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence” (Fact Sheet, here) designed to spur new AI safety and security standards, encourage the development of privacy-preserving technologies in conjunction with AI training, address certain instances of algorithmic discrimination, advance the responsible use of AI in healthcare, study the impacts of AI on the labor market, support AI research and a competitive environment in the industry, and issue guidance on the use of AI by federal agencies. This latest move builds on the White House’s previously-released “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” and its announcement this past summer that it had secured voluntary commitments from major AI companies focusing on what the White House termed as “three principles that must be fundamental to the future of AI – safety, security, and trust.”