Facebook sued two companies for data scraping. What does this mean?

News: Facebook has sued two companies in the U.S. for data scraping from its platforms.

 

Facts:

  • Data Scraping or web scraping is the process of extracting data from a website.Scraper bots are designed to derive information from these websites.A user designing a bot to extract data is called a scraper.
  • Why Data Scraping? Teams or individuals resort to data scraping from various companies to source marketing information related content and product price.
  • Is Data Scraping illegal? Data scraping is not declared illegal but the purpose of scraping can be examined.Good bots enable search engines to compare prices of different services and gauge sentiment on social media for market research.However, Bad bots fetch content with an intention to reveal sensitive information.