CFAA liability

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In a closely-watched appeal, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, reversed an Eleventh Circuit decision and adopted a narrow interpretation of “exceeds unauthorized access” under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), ruling that an individual “exceeds authorized access” when he or she accesses a computer with authorization but then obtains information located in particular areas of the computer – such as files, folders, or databases – that are off limits to him or her. (Van Buren v. United States, No. 19-783, 593 U.S. ___ (June 3, 2021)). The majority equated “exceed[ing] authorized access” with the act of “entering a part of a system to which a computer user lacks access privileges,” rejecting the Government’s contention that a person who is authorized to access information from a protected computer for certain purposes violates CFAA Section 1030(a)(2) by accessing the computer with an improper purpose or motive. Put simply, the court’s view suggests a “gates-up-or-down” approach where the CFAA prohibits accessing data one is not authorized to access.

Although the case involved a criminal conviction under the CFAA, Van Buren gave the Supreme Court the opportunity to resolve a long-standing circuit split and heavily-litigated issue that arose in both criminal and civil cases under the CFAA’s “unauthorized access” provision. This provision of the CFAA is routinely pled in cases against former employees that have accessed proprietary data in their final days of employment for an improper purpose (e.g., for use in their new job or competing venture). It is also a common claim in disputes involving unwanted web scraping. On the latter point, the Court’s narrow interpretation of the “exceeds authorized access” provision would appear to be right in line with the narrow interpretations of the CFAA enunciated by the Ninth Circuit in its blockbuster hiQ opinion, which held that that when a computer network generally permits public access to its data, a user’s accessing that publicly available data will not constitute access “without authorization” under the CFAA and in its Power Ventures precedent, which held that, in the context of unwanted data scraping, a violation of the terms of use of a website, without more, cannot be the basis for civil liability under the CFAA.

On November 30, 2020, the Supreme Court held oral argument in its first case interpreting the “unauthorized access” provision of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The CFAA in part prohibits knowingly accessing a computer “without authorization” or “exceeding authorized access” to a computer and thereby obtaining information and causing a “loss” under the statute. The case concerns an appeal of an Eleventh Circuit decision affirming the conviction of a police officer for violating the CFAA for accessing a police license plate database he was authorized to use but used instead for non-law enforcement purposes. (See U.S. v. Van Buren, 940 F. 3d 1192 (11th Cir. 2019), pet. for cert. granted Van Buren v. U.S., No. 19-783 (Apr. 20, 2020)). The issue presented is: “Whether a person who is authorized to access information on a computer for certain purposes violates Section 1030(a)(2) of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act if he accesses the same information for an improper purpose.”

The defendant Van Buren argued that he is innocent because he accessed only databases that he was authorized to use, even though he did so for an inappropriate reason.  He contended that the CFAA was being interpreted too broadly and that such a precedent could subject individuals to criminal liability merely for violating corporate computer use policies. During oral argument, Van Buren’s counsel suggested that such a wide interpretation of the CFAA was turning the statute into a “sweeping Internet police mandate” and that the Court shouldn’t construe a statute “simply on the assumption the government will use it responsibly.”  In rebuttal, the Government countered that Van Buren’s misuse of access for personal gain was the type of “serious breaches of trust by insiders” that statutory language is designed to cover.

We continue to wait to see if the Supreme Court will accept LinkedIn’s petition to overturn the Ninth Circuit’s blockbuster ruling in the hiQ Labs case.  In that case, the appeals court held that an entity engaging in scraping of “public” data had shown a likelihood of success on its claim that such access does not constitute access “without authorization” under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

In the meantime, earlier this week the Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of an Eleventh Circuit decision that affirmed the conviction of a police officer under the CFAA for “exceeding authorized access” for accessing police databases for personal gain. (See U.S. v. Van Buren, 940 F. 3d 1192 (11th Cir. 2019), pet. for cert. granted Van Buren v. U.S., No. 19-783 (Apr. 20, 2020)).  This would be the Supreme Court’s first CFAA case.

And in addition to the news at the Supreme Court, late last month, a D.C. district court issued a ruling interpreting the extent of criminal liability under the CFAA for accessing websites in contravention of terms of use for academic research. In that case, the D.C. court held that the mere violation of website terms of use cannot form the basis of criminal liability for “unauthorized access” or “exceeding authorized access” under the CFAA. (Sandvig v. Barr, No. 16. 1368 (D.D.C. Mar. 27, 2020)).

In continuing its push to enforce its terms and policies against developers that engage in unauthorized collection or scraping of user data, Facebook brought suit last month against mobile marketing and data analytics firm OneAudience LLC. (Facebook, Inc. v. OneAudience LLC, No. 20-01461 (N.D. Cal. Complaint filed Feb. 27, 2020)). Facebook alleges that OneAudience harvested Facebook users’ profile data and device data in contravention of Facebook’s terms and developer policies. OneAudience purportedly gathered this data by paying app developers to bundle OneAudience’s software development kit (SDK) into their apps and then harvesting data for those users that logged into those apps via Facebook credentials.

UPDATE: On October 14, 2019, the parties entered into a Joint Stipulation dismissing the case, with prejudice.  It appears from some reports that Stackla’s access to Facebook has been reinstated as part of the settlement.
UPDATE: On September 27, 2019, the California district court issued its written order denying Stackla’s request for a TRO.  In short, the court found that, at this early stage, Stackla only demonstrated “speculative harm” and its “vague statements” did not sufficiently show that restoration of access to Facebook’s API would cure the alleged impending reality of Stackla losing customers and being driven out of business (“The extraordinary relief of a pre-adjudicatory injunction demands more precision with respect to when irreparable harm will occur than ‘soon.’”).  As for weighing whether a TRO would be in the public interest, the court, while understanding Stackla’s predicament, found that issuing a TRO could hamper Facebook’s ability to “decisively police its social-media platforms” and that there was a public interest in allowing a company to police the integrity of its platforms (“Facebook’s enforcement activities would be compromised if judicial review were expected to precede rather than follow its enforcement actions”). [emphasis in original]. This ruling leaves the issue for another day, perhaps during a preliminary injunction hearing, after some additional briefing of the issues.

The ink is barely dry on the landmark Ninth Circuit hiQ Labs decision. Yet, a new dispute has already cropped up testing the bounds of the CFAA and the ability of a platform to enforce terms restricting unauthorized scraping of social media content. (See Stackla, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc., No. 19-5849 (N.D. Cal. filed Sept. 19, 2019)).  This dispute involves Facebook and a social media sentiment tracking company, Stackla, Inc., which, as part of its business, accesses Facebook and Instagram content. This past Wednesday, September 25th, the judge in the case denied Stackla, Inc.’s request for emergency relief restoring its access to Facebook’s platform. While the judge has yet to issue a written ruling, the initial pleadings and memoranda filed in the case are noteworthy and bring up important issues surrounding the hot issue of scraping.

The Stackla dispute has echoes of hiQ v LinkedIn. Both involve the open nature of “public” websites (although the “public” nature of the content at issue appears to be in dispute.)  Both disputes address whether the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (the “CFAA”) can be used as a tool to prevent the scraping of such sites. Both disputes address how a platform may use its terms of use to prohibit automated scraping or data collection beyond the scope of such terms, although the discussion in hiQ was extremely brief.  And like hiQ, Stackla asserts that if not for the ability to use Facebook and Instagram data, Stackla would be out of business. Thus both disputes address whether a court’s equitable powers should come into play if a platform’s termination of access will result in a particular company’s insolvency.  Given the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in favor of hiQ, it is highly likely that Stackla’s lawyers believed the Ninth Circuit decision was their golden ticket in this case. The judge’s ruling on the request for emergency relief suggests they may be disappointed.

In a ruling that is being hailed as a victory for web scrapers and the open nature of publicly available website data, the Ninth Circuit today issued its long-awaited opinion in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., No. 17-16783 (9th Cir. Sept. 9, 2019). The crucial question before the court was whether once hiQ Labs, Inc. (“hiQ”) received LinkedIn Corp.’s (“LinkedIn”) cease-and-desist letter demanding it stop scraping public LinkedIn profiles, any further scraping of such data was “without authorization” within the meaning of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The appeals court affirmed the lower court’s order granting a preliminary injunction barring the professional networking platform LinkedIn from blocking hiQ, a data analytics company, from accessing and scraping publicly available LinkedIn member profiles to create competing business analytic products. Most notably, the Ninth Circuit held that hiQ had shown a likelihood of success on the merits in its claim that when a computer network generally permits public access to its data, a user’s accessing that publicly available data will not constitute access “without authorization” under the CFAA.

In light of this ruling, data scrapers, content aggregators and advocates of a more open internet will certainly be emboldened, but we reiterate something we advised back in our 2017 Client Alert about the lower court’s hiQ decision: while the Ninth Circuit’s decision suggests that the CFAA is not an available remedy to protect against unwanted scraping of public website data that is “presumptively open to all,” entities engaged in scraping should remain careful. The road ahead, while perhaps less bumpy than before, still contains rough patches. Indeed, the Ninth Circuit cautioned that its opinion was issued only at the preliminary injunction stage and that the court did not “resolve the companies’ legal dispute definitively, nor do we address all the claims and defenses they have pleaded in the district court.”

In a new development in an important scraping dispute, LinkedIn appealed the lower court’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction compelling LinkedIn to disable any technical measures it had employed to block the defendant’s data scraping activities.  LinkedIn’s brief was filed on October 3, 2017.  In it, LinkedIn asserts that…

A Green Light for Screen Scraping? Proceed With Caution…

UPDATE:  As expected, LinkedIn appealed the lower court’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction compelling LinkedIn to disable any technical measures it had employed to block the defendant’s data scraping activities.  LinkedIn’s brief was filed on October 3, 2017.  In…