What does ethical data scraping look like in practice?

What does ethical data scraping look like in practice?



Following our workshop in Amsterdam on July 2, 2025, hosted by the Shamgar Center for Digital Law and Innovation at Tel Aviv University and led by Prof. Niva Elkin-Koren and Dr. Maayan Perel, we are continuing to reflect on the complex legal and ethical landscape surrounding data scraping for research and AI development.



Using a real-world test case from Bright Data, participants engaged in a “red teaming” exercise to explore the legal limits of scraping publicly available data across different domains—copyright, competition, privacy, and contract law. This approach opened up a space for critical dialogue between academic, legal, and industry perspectives.



One of the key themes that emerged was the urgent need to distinguish between access to data and the use of data, and to craft legal and institutional frameworks that support responsible, meaningful access in service of public interest research. The conversation highlighted gaps between EU and US legal regimes, the challenges posed by commercial opt-outs and contractual enclosures, and the role of licensing, social norms, and cross-border policy in shaping ethical scraping practices.



For further reading, we highly recommend the new report by the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights, which frames these questions in the broader context of AI governance and copyright reform:

https://infojustice.org/archives/46616