Recent Development: Craigslist and the CFAA: The Untold Story

There is one area in which Craigslist Inc. appears particularly invested these days: its legal bills. Notoriously cutthroat, this online classified marketplace has steadfastly clung to its bare-boned business blueprint while resisting any form of growth or innovation over the years. Craigslist has not, however, shied away from taking on its would-be competitors in court, oftentimes those attempting only to “add[] a layer of value” to the Craigslist formula. Not surprisingly, Craigslist’s arsenal of litigation weapons has become quite vast in recent years: claims arising under the Copyright Act, the Lanham Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), as well as claims of unjust enrichment, conspiracy, and even trespass to chattel,all aimed at scrappy upstarts sporting a fraction of Craigslist’s resources. Many of these rival companies have employed “web scrapers” to aggregate publicly available data on Craigslist’s servers and then repackage or otherwise make available this content for third-party users.In some cases, this activity clearly constitutes misappropriation or theft, but generalizing these companies’ motives is tricky. Very often these competing companies appear to be simply trying to enhance and augment the Craigslist model, which is a desirable result in a free and unfettered market. Several recent court orders in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California signal a major early victory for Craigslist over these web scrapers and data aggregators, even though much of the early media attention has centered on where Craigslist’s lawsuit fell short: the copyright infringement claims. Indeed, what was lost on many mainstream commentators (but certainly not legal bloggers) is that the application of the CFAA to online “intrusion,” specifically to Craigslist’s competitors’ web scraping activities. The April and August 2013 orders on the defendants’ motions to dismiss found these activities actionable under the CFAA,which is alarming because the scraped data in question was available on freely accessible, public websites. Moreover, these orders subvert a recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, United States v. Nosal,which had narrowed the application of the CFAA and its use as a weapon of private enforcement against web scrapers and other data aggregators.9 In brief, Nosal stands for the proposition that users’ violations of a website’s “Terms of Use” (TOU) could not alone form the basis of CFAA liability.The Nosal case is significant because it seemingly halted the runaway train that the CFAA had become in California. Further, it marked a departure from other circuits by offering a lean, sensible interpretation of the CFAA’s thorniest provision: what activities constitute “unauthorized access.” However, the Craigslist orders still leave open questions about whether Nosal was the great panacea that it first appeared to be, or if it managed to change anything at all. While there are causes of action that ought to be (and are) available to plaintiffs wishing to guard against unwanted intrusion, CFAA civil actions should not be among them. This cause of action is poorly suited to address complex property issues in the digital age, and it may simultaneously chill web innovation and foster anticompetitive behavior in the market. While it is unclear whether the Northern District of California will ever reach the merits in Craigslist, these early decisions suggest that the court may have misapplied Nosal, or may be poised to misapply it in the future. While Nosal seemed to take a forward step in squaring the circle—particularly with regard to the CFAA’s more troubling provisions—the Northern District’s misguided application of the CFAA post-Nosal illustrates deeper infirmities within the CFAA. Indeed, courts cannot and should not stretch the CFAA to cover unanticipated and uncontemplated forms of technology, and in this regard the CFAA is ripe for a simple statutory fix. A CFAA “safe harbor” of sorts, borrowed from language found in a related statute, would help modernize a statute that has, over time, swept within its ambit a new class of unintended defendants. Part I of this Comment begins by tracking the CFAA’s evolution in the Ninth Circuit as applied in the internet realm. Part II examines the Nosal decision and whether the court properly applied it in Craigslist. Part II also examines the implications for web start-ups seeking to exploit existing, publicly available data if the Northern District eventually holds against 3Taps Inc. at trial or on summary judgment. Finally, Part III proposes a statutory solution that creates a safe harbor within the CFAA for users accessing public computer systems, effectively removing these defendants from the purview of the CFAA. This Comment focuses on developments principally in the Ninth Circuit, as California web companies are perhaps most poised to litigate these types of issues

Recent Development: Craigslist and the CFAA: The Untold Story

There is one area in which Craigslist Inc. appears particularly invested these days: its legal bills. Notoriously cutthroat, this online classified marketplace has steadfastly clung to its bare-boned business blueprint while resisting any form of growth or innovation over the years. Craigslist has not, however, shied away from taking on its would-be competitors in court, oftentimes those attempting only to “add[] a layer of value” to the Craigslist formula. Not surprisingly, Craigslist’s arsenal of litigation weapons has become quite vast in recent years: claims arising under the Copyright Act, the Lanham Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), as well as claims of unjust enrichment, conspiracy, and even trespass to chattel,all aimed at scrappy upstarts sporting a fraction of Craigslist’s resources. Many of these rival companies have employed “web scrapers” to aggregate publicly available data on Craigslist’s servers and then repackage or otherwise make available this content for third-party users.In some cases, this activity clearly constitutes misappropriation or theft, but generalizing these companies’ motives is tricky. Very often these competing companies appear to be simply trying to enhance and augment the Craigslist model, which is a desirable result in a free and unfettered market. Several recent court orders in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California signal a major early victory for Craigslist over these web scrapers and data aggregators, even though much of the early media attention has centered on where Craigslist’s lawsuit fell short: the copyright infringement claims. Indeed, what was lost on many mainstream commentators (but certainly not legal bloggers) is that the application of the CFAA to online “intrusion,” specifically to Craigslist’s competitors’ web scraping activities. The April and August 2013 orders on the defendants’ motions to dismiss found these activities actionable under the CFAA,which is alarming because the scraped data in question was available on freely accessible, public websites. Moreover, these orders subvert a recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, United States v. Nosal,which had narrowed the application of the CFAA and its use as a weapon of private enforcement against web scrapers and other data aggregators.9 In brief, Nosal stands for the proposition that users’ violations of a website’s “Terms of Use” (TOU) could not alone form the basis of CFAA liability.The Nosal case is significant because it seemingly halted the runaway train that the CFAA had become in California. Further, it marked a departure from other circuits by offering a lean, sensible interpretation of the CFAA’s thorniest provision: what activities constitute “unauthorized access.” However, the Craigslist orders still leave open questions about whether Nosal was the great panacea that it first appeared to be, or if it managed to change anything at all. While there are causes of action that ought to be (and are) available to plaintiffs wishing to guard against unwanted intrusion, CFAA civil actions should not be among them. This cause of action is poorly suited to address complex property issues in the digital age, and it may simultaneously chill web innovation and foster anticompetitive behavior in the market. While it is unclear whether the Northern District of California will ever reach the merits in Craigslist, these early decisions suggest that the court may have misapplied Nosal, or may be poised to misapply it in the future. While Nosal seemed to take a forward step in squaring the circle—particularly with regard to the CFAA’s more troubling provisions—the Northern District’s misguided application of the CFAA post-Nosal illustrates deeper infirmities within the CFAA. Indeed, courts cannot and should not stretch the CFAA to cover unanticipated and uncontemplated forms of technology, and in this regard the CFAA is ripe for a simple statutory fix. A CFAA “safe harbor” of sorts, borrowed from language found in a related statute, would help modernize a statute that has, over time, swept within its ambit a new class of unintended defendants. Part I of this Comment begins by tracking the CFAA’s evolution in the Ninth Circuit as applied in the internet realm. Part II examines the Nosal decision and whether the court properly applied it in Craigslist. Part II also examines the implications for web start-ups seeking to exploit existing, publicly available data if the Northern District eventually holds against 3Taps Inc. at trial or on summary judgment. Finally, Part III proposes a statutory solution that creates a safe harbor within the CFAA for users accessing public computer systems, effectively removing these defendants from the purview of the CFAA. This Comment focuses on developments principally in the Ninth Circuit, as California web companies are perhaps most poised to litigate these types of issues

Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of web technology at a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006-11

A 5-year case study of an established regional newspaper in Britain investigates journalists about their perceptions of convergence in digital technologies. This research is the first ethnographic longitudinal case study of a UK regional newspaper. Although conforming to some trends observed in the wider field of scholarship, the analysis adds to skepticism about any linear or directional views of innovation and adoption: the Northern Echo newspaper journalists were observed to have revised their opinions of optimum Web practices, and sometimes radically reversed policies. Technology is seen in the period as a fluid, amorphous entity. Central corporate authority appeared to diminish in the period as part of a wider reduction in formalism. Questioning functionalist notions of the market, the study suggests cause and effect models of change are often subverted by contradictory perceptions of particular actions. Meanwhile, during technological evolution, the ‘professional imagination’ can be understood as strongly reflecting the parent print culture and its routines, despite pioneering a new convergence partnership with an independent television company

Big Data in Agriculture – From FOODIE towards data bio

What’s the role of Big Data in the farming ecosystem? Farmers need to measure and understand the impact of a huge amount and variety of data which drive overall quality and yield of their fields. Among those are local weather data, GPS data, ortophotos, satellite imagery, soil specifics, soil conductivity, seed, fertilizer and crop protectant specifications and many more. Being able to leverage this data for running long and short term simulations in response to “events” like changed weather, market need or other parameters is indispensable for farmers in terms of maximizing their profits. IoT (Internet of Technology) including field sensors and machinery monitoring. The experimentation in FarmTelemetry project demonstrates that one average Czech farm (i.e. around 1’000 hectares) could generate daily 20 MegaBytes of data. This could be only for Czech Republic something between 30 and 50 GB per one day. We may easily reach Terabytes of data a day from agricultural basic monitoring by sensors in Europe. Together with satellite data agriculture will need to manage extremely large amount of data. On one side there is growing whole ecosystem with a strong need to secure Big Data from different repositories and heterogeneous sources. In some cases, sharing of data could be common interest, but on other side, there are also different interests and data could help to one part of value chain to take bigger part of profit. From this reason Big data are sensitive topics and trusting of producers about data security is essential. The producers of seeds and chemicals want to maximize their business with farmers. Our team stated implementation of Big Data technologies in frame of European 7FP project FOODIE. This work currently the work continue as part of DataBio project

Shifting journalistic roles in democratic transitions: Lessons from Egypt

While in the case of the Arab Spring the focus of research and debate was very much on the role of social media in enabling political change both during the uprisings and in their immediate aftermath, the impact of traditional national mass media and journalism on framing this political change has been less addressed. In this article, we investigate the role of Egyptian journalists in shaping Egypt’s complex and fast-moving political transition. Based on a thematic analysis of in-depth interviews and a conceptual framework building on Christians et al.’s normative roles of the media, it can be concluded that the monitorial and facilitative roles, which were prevalent in the early stages of the post-Mubarak era, were quickly overturned in favor of a radical and collaborative role. Egyptian journalists working in private media thus demonized their political adversaries, mainly the Islamists, transforming this political ‘other’ into the ultimate enemy. At the same time, the new military regime was being revered and celebrated. This arguably contributed to further destabilize the fragile transition to democracy. It is furthermore concluded that for democracy to succeed in an Egyptian context, antagonistic political conflicts need to be transformed into agonistic ones both at the level of political culture and media culture

Citizen Journalism at the Margins

Amidst burgeoning literature on citizen journalism, we still know relatively little about how and why genuinely marginalised groups seek to use this form of reporting to challenge their exclusion. In this article, we aim to address this gap by analysing two UK citizen journalism initiatives emanating from The Big Issue Foundation, a national homeless organisation, and Access Dorset, a regional charity for disabled and elderly people. These case studies are united by the authors’ involvement in both instances, primarily through designing and delivering bespoke citizen journalism education and mentoring. Based on over 40 hours of interviews with participants of the workshops and 36 hours of participant observation, we analyse the challenges participants faced in their journey to become citizen journalists. This included: low self-esteem, physical health and mental wellbeing, the need for accessible and adaptable technology, and overcoming fear associated with assuming a public voice. We also analyse marginalised groups’ attitudes to professional journalism and education, and its role in shaping journalistic identity and self-empowerment. Whilst demonstrably empowering and esteem building,our participants were acutely aware of societal power relations that were seemingly still beyond their ability to influence. Those who are marginalised are, nevertheless, in the best position to use citizen journalism as a conduit for social change, we argue - though challenges remain even at the grassroots level to foster and sustain participatory practices

The 'new majority' and the academization of journalism

The academization of journalism is reliant on the development of the field founded in scholarship demonstrated through the publication of research in peer-reviewed specialist journals. Given the profile of journalism faculty, this means inducting practitioners into a culture of critical research. In Australia at least, this cohort of neophytes is predominantly comprised of middle-aged women who were surveyed about their personal attitudes to research. They were mostly open to the idea of becoming researchers but were inclined to proceed cautiously without necessarily severing their ties with practice. There was evidence to suggest that a generally positive orientation to research was not capitalized on and that they remained uncertain about the role of research. On the other hand, they appeared not to have adopted the orthodoxy of implacable opposition to scholarly inquiry. The change in gender composition in the academy may provide, contrary to historical, but more in line with contemporary, evidence, a renewed impetus to the project of academizing the field

Public appraisal of government efforts and participation intent in medico-ethical policymaking in Japan: a large scale national survey concerning brain death and organ transplant

BACKGROUND: Public satisfaction with policy process influences the legitimacy and acceptance of policies, and conditions the future political process, especially when contending ethical value judgments are involved. On the other hand, public involvement is required if effective policy is to be developed and accepted. METHODS: Using the data from a large-scale national opinion survey, this study evaluates public appraisal of past government efforts to legalize organ transplant from brain-dead bodies in Japan, and examines the public's intent to participate in future policy. RESULTS: A relatively large percentage of people became aware of the issue when government actions were initiated, and many increasingly formed their own opinions on the policy in question. However, a significant number (43.3%) remained unaware of any legislative efforts, and only 26.3% of those who were aware provided positive appraisals of the policymaking process. Furthermore, a majority of respondents (61.8%) indicated unwillingness to participate in future policy discussions of bioethical issues. Multivariate analysis revealed the following factors are associated with positive appraisals of policy development: greater age; earlier opinion formation; and familiarity with donor cards. Factors associated with likelihood of future participation in policy discussion include younger age, earlier attention to the issue, and knowledge of past government efforts. Those unwilling to participate cited as their reasons that experts are more knowledgeable and that the issues are too complex. CONCLUSIONS: Results of an opinion survey in Japan were presented, and a set of factors statistically associated with them were discussed. Further efforts to improve policy making process on bioethical issues are desirable

Fecal Calprotectin Excretion in Preterm Infants during the Neonatal Period

Fecal calprotectin has been proposed as a non-invasive marker of intestinal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease in adults and children. Fecal calprotectin levels have been reported to be much higher in both healthy full-term and preterm infants than in children and adults.To determine the time course of fecal calprotectin (f-calprotectin) excretion in preterm infants from birth until hospital discharge and to identify factors influencing f-calprotectin levels in the first weeks of life, including bacterial establishment in the gut.F-calprotectin was determined using an ELISA assay in 147 samples obtained prospectively from 47 preterm infants (gestational age, and birth-weight interquartiles 27–29 weeks, and 880–1320 g, respectively) at birth, and at 2-week intervals until hospital discharge. (p = 0.047).During the first weeks of life, the high f-calprotectin values observed in preterm infants could be linked to the gut bacterial establishment

Emerging electronic networks and democratic life [Introduction to the theme issue]

Contains fulltext : 62485-OA.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)The European Institute of Communication and Culture (Euricom) and the University of Nijmegen are engaged in a long-term investigation into understanding the problems and possibilities of electronic networks in democratic life. The first of a series of seminars on this topic was held September 2001 in Piran, Slovenia. During this conference, 21 scholars from around Europe, Asia and New Zealand convened and presented papers related to a single overriding question: In what manner and to what degree can electronic networks contribute to a more informed and politically active citizenry