A recent circuit court opinion focused on "scraping," the popular and often controversial practice of creating a computer program to collect information embedded in a web site. In EF Cultural Travel BV, et al. v. Zefer Corporation, et al., the 1st Circuit upheld the preliminary injunction prohibiting defendant Zefer's scraper tool from accessing plaintiff EF's web site, but on much more narrow grounds than the district court. The court's opinion is noteworthy because it explicitly rejected the "reasonable expectations" test used by the district court to determine the limits of authorized access under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (the "CFAA").
The dispute began when a company founded by former EF employees hired Zefer to develop a scraper tool designed to access EF's web site and collect pricing information. EF's competitor then used this pricing data to undercut EF's prices.
