The lawsuit claims that the alleged data scrapping by the four unnamed individuals has damaged the function and image of Twitter. As a result, it has requested a trial to assess and receive damages, the full amount of which would be determined in the proceedings.
Although the motion to sue has been filed, Musk’s case might not be simple. For starters, the lack of identity attributed to the scrapers makes it difficult to actually prosecute them in the event they are found guilty. The lawsuit also alleges that the theoretical damages will involve a “disgorgement of [the] Defendants’ profits” from the scraping.” Market Research Future estimates that the web scraping industry will reach over a billion dollars by 2030. Without these identities being known before the lawsuit filing, it could be difficult to enact any solid action against them.
What’s also important to understand is that, technically, web scraping public data isn’t illegal. The U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals determined as such back in April 2022, according to TechCrunch, and the majority of data the scrapers were targeting was publicly-available Twitter data, which can include posts and user bios. Since this act wasn’t in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, it’ll be difficult for X Corps. to prove illegality. Regardless, the lawsuit likely has a long way to go before a resolution in the District Court of Dallas County is determined.
The full lawsuit document can be found on Document Cloud.
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