Musk’s X Corp sues Israel’s Bright Data for scraping data(timesofisrael.com)
timesofisrael.com
Musk’s X Corp sues Israel’s Bright Data for scraping data
https://www.timesofisrael.com/musks-x-corp-sues-israels-bright-data-for-illegally-scraping-data/
45 comments
> X Corp., formerly known as Twitter,
So this wasn't a joke? Musk is really rebranding everything as 'x'?
So this wasn't a joke? Musk is really rebranding everything as 'x'?
The company has already officially been renamed. https://sfstandard.com/2023/04/11/twitter-is-now-called-x-co...
I wonder if Twitter.com will be abandoned on Jan 21 2024? Someone can claim it and start their own website called Twitter.
I was going to joke about Prince and Weird Al fighting over the name but I see I said that already https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11604783
I was going to joke about Prince and Weird Al fighting over the name but I see I said that already https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11604783
They need to hold on to twitter.com (and t.co). Otherwise, many years' worth of existing links to tweets will stop working.
Do they care?
Do they make money by showing ads to people who are able to actually get to their website?
> Do they make money by showing ads to people who are able to actually get to their website?
Increasingly, no.
Increasingly, no.
Musk had shown over the last year or so that he clearly has no idea how the web or websites work and probably thinks all those links will be magically updated because everyone loves him and wants to make his vision of stupidity be reality and will go and fix them.
Ostensibly, although many (most?) of Musk's actions since the takeover have been rather detrimental to this goal.
That didn’t stop them from limiting the number of tweets users could browse to a tiny number.
Again. Do they care?
That was the holding company, not Twitter itself. It does seem like Elon is going all in with the X rebranding, though.
> Twitter has ceased to exist as a company, having merged with another entity called X Corp, according to a court filing.
The company is now X, the logo is X, the <title> tag says X, and the app is now X.
Only the .com remains, for now. I suspect it’s the hardest to change.
The company is now X, the logo is X, the <title> tag says X, and the app is now X.
Only the .com remains, for now. I suspect it’s the hardest to change.
The app is not X because Apple doesn’t allow single letter iOS application names on the App Store. It’s still Twitter on my phone and seems like they haven’t even bothered correctly rolling out the new icon around the world… I have automatic updates on and the icon is still the blue bird for me here in Australia.
on my android here in australia it was changed a few days ago
Must have gotten something worked out with Google then, or someone was wrong when reposting/combining info on Twitter… which was definitely a possible reason… but the iOS half seems to still be true at least for me in Australia…
Sad follow up for anyone coming across this later… but alas it has indeed now changed to X for me too…
x.com is working, though I haven’t checked what happens past the login screen
x.com is a redirect to twitter.com (or, if its not now, it was a permanent redirect sometime in the past week when I tried, and my browser is still respecting it.)
I don't even see how v - the everything app, will circumvent the 30% apple/Android tax, lol
Wait til you hear about the new sign!
[deleted]
If interested, this piece offers context with the docket and complaint documents: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/elon...
Looking at the causes of action, the tortious interference claim is going down in smoke, because one of the elements is that the breach of contract needs to have harmed Twitter, and Twitter hasn't alleged any harm. Which is surprising, because you could pretty much just write a sentence that basically says that scraping causes extra load or extra instability or whatnot and that would satisfy Twiqbal, but there's not even that.
As for the other claims, it seems to boil down to "scraping is against our ToS, and therefore they breached their contract." I'm not savvy enough on the case law to know how strong of a claim this is, but on a first inspection, I've noticed something curious. Twitter talks about a couple of ways that scraping would breach their ToS and then when talking about Bright Data, they don't quite allege that Bright Data did any of those, just that it engaged in scraping.
(It also feels to me like someone started drafting up a claim on violating the CFAA, until another lawyer tapped them on the shoulder and informed them that 9th Circuit precedent from last year is that scraping is absolutely not a CFAA violation.)
As for the other claims, it seems to boil down to "scraping is against our ToS, and therefore they breached their contract." I'm not savvy enough on the case law to know how strong of a claim this is, but on a first inspection, I've noticed something curious. Twitter talks about a couple of ways that scraping would breach their ToS and then when talking about Bright Data, they don't quite allege that Bright Data did any of those, just that it engaged in scraping.
(It also feels to me like someone started drafting up a claim on violating the CFAA, until another lawyer tapped them on the shoulder and informed them that 9th Circuit precedent from last year is that scraping is absolutely not a CFAA violation.)
> Looking at the causes of action, the tortious interference claim is going down in smoke, because one of the elements is that the breach of contract needs to have harmed Twitter, and Twitter hasn’t alleged any harm.
Yes, they have (paragraph 77). I suppose you could argue that it is not pled with sufficient specificity, but it looks like they’ve probably pled sufficient details to support it without actually being very explicit in drawing the connection (e.g., providing a mechanism for evading rate limits denies Twitter revenue that otherwise would be received by people seeking the data paying through tiered API access that Twitter sells, referenced in paragraph 27.) This seems like the kind of thing that, if it is a problem, will likely just be addressed by an amended complaint.
> As for the other claims, it seems to boil down to “scraping is against our ToS, and therefore they breached their contract.” I’m not savvy enough on the case law to know how strong of a claim this is, but on a first inspection, I’ve noticed something curious. Twitter talks about a couple of ways that scraping would breach their ToS and then when talking about Bright Data, they don’t quite allege that Bright Data did any of those, just that it engaged in scraping.
They identify in general terms the nature of the breach in the breach cause of action (paragraph 64 lists five specific categories of actions in violation of the ToS), each of which is supported more specifically in the general narrative in paragraphs 1-57 that are realleged in each cause of action.
Yes, they have (paragraph 77). I suppose you could argue that it is not pled with sufficient specificity, but it looks like they’ve probably pled sufficient details to support it without actually being very explicit in drawing the connection (e.g., providing a mechanism for evading rate limits denies Twitter revenue that otherwise would be received by people seeking the data paying through tiered API access that Twitter sells, referenced in paragraph 27.) This seems like the kind of thing that, if it is a problem, will likely just be addressed by an amended complaint.
> As for the other claims, it seems to boil down to “scraping is against our ToS, and therefore they breached their contract.” I’m not savvy enough on the case law to know how strong of a claim this is, but on a first inspection, I’ve noticed something curious. Twitter talks about a couple of ways that scraping would breach their ToS and then when talking about Bright Data, they don’t quite allege that Bright Data did any of those, just that it engaged in scraping.
They identify in general terms the nature of the breach in the breach cause of action (paragraph 64 lists five specific categories of actions in violation of the ToS), each of which is supported more specifically in the general narrative in paragraphs 1-57 that are realleged in each cause of action.
IF interested and you don’t pay for Bloomberg Law, https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67637345/x-corp-v-brigh...
Good luck with that in Switzerland where this is 100% legal.
Or in Germany, see §44b UrhG.
[1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__44b.html
[1] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__44b.html
It seems to me that Twitter's robots.txt only allows Googlebot:
https://twitter.com/robots.txt
Therefore, this disallows other bots in "maschinenlesbarer Form" and the scraping is illegal.
https://twitter.com/robots.txt
Therefore, this disallows other bots in "maschinenlesbarer Form" and the scraping is illegal.
Google is, to a first approximation, the web's only search engine. As such I think there's an argument to be made that declaring your bot's User-Agent as Googlebot is a technical necessity, similar to how every browser declares itself as Mozilla.
[deleted]
This is fascinating. Seems like at least Bing openly ignores robots.txt?
They aren't alleging that it is illegal. They are alleging that it violates terms that Bright Data agreed to when Bright Data signed up for Twitter.
How do website terms of service work in Switzerland, especially in the case where the person using the website has actually gone through the account creation process there?
How do website terms of service work in Switzerland, especially in the case where the person using the website has actually gone through the account creation process there?
Much of the crap put into terms of service is null and void. It can't restrict your legal rights. As an example, they can't force you into arbitration if you want to sue them.
If it's like in Europe, if a contract is illegal or restrict rights disproportionately, it's unenforceable.
How the internet survives when basic rights conflict is the active question. 202x is the decade ever nation on the planet woke up & decided to start regulating what happens across the internet.
And most of these rules don't respect anyone else's. Your people in your country do whatever you say whenever they travel across the internet afar. But those people running their servers also have their own laws that apply to them. The potential for conflict here is vast.
And most of these rules don't respect anyone else's. Your people in your country do whatever you say whenever they travel across the internet afar. But those people running their servers also have their own laws that apply to them. The potential for conflict here is vast.
interesting point. in which countries that would be 100% legal in general? BrightData is set up in Israel, right? Is that the case there? But I wonder if having a US entity (NY) they are bound to US jurisdiction for this. Also, what does that mean for all tooling that scrapes/d Twitter?
Good luck with that, Israel is a legal haven for seedy data exfiltration and backdoor SaaS companies.
Oh my god they actually rebranded to X.
Ordinarily I would say scraping is legal, but only because there's no agreement between the scraping party and the service being scraped that states the contrary. In this case, the scraper agreed not to do so with Twitter, then breached that agreement.