Share on LinkedInShare on LinkedIn

ARTICLE · 17 MAY 2010

US Web Site Scraping Case Proceeds to Trial

A US court has ruled that a database builder who had been authorised by a client to scrape the client's web site on a database built for it by a previous supplier may have been infringing copyright, database rights, trespassing, hacking and breaching the web site's terms of use.

United StatesStrategy
Mark Weston
Mark Weston

A US court has ruled that a database builder who had been authorised by a client to scrape the client's web site on a database built for it by a previous supplier may have been infringing copyright, database rights, trespassing, hacking and breaching the web site's terms of use. Snap-on had built a parts database for Mitsubishi to enable dealers to access spare parts. Mitsubishi later moved that work to O'Neil. Mitsubishi saw the database that Snap-on had created as belonging to it and it authorised O'Neil to scrape the database to enable Mitsubishi to continue using the data with its suppliers. To access Snap-on's systems to do the scraping, Mitsubishi gave O'Neil logon details. The scraping caused Snap-on's site to crash. Snap-on sued and the Ohio court said that the case must proceed to a full trial.

We operate a free-to-view policy, asking only that you register in order to read all of our content. Please login or register to view the rest of this article.

See more popular content from