Source: Thompson Cooper LLP

Recent cases in Canada and the U.S. regarding the use of web crawlers           

What's a web crawler you ask? Web crawlers are used for “Scraping” (or pulling) a business's commercial content, and then using that commercial content for its own commercial purposes. 

This is becoming common as of late in Canada and the US. For instance, on April 6, 2017, a decision was rendered in Canada in the case of Trader Corporation v. CarGurus.  Trader and CarGurus are competitors in the digital marketplace for new and used vehicles in Canada.  CarGurus “scraped” car dealership websites for photos of cars for sale. 

On April 13, 2017, a decision was rendered in the United States in the case of Craigslist, Inc vs. RadPad Inc.  Craigslist alleged that RadPad had “scraped” thousands of Craigslist user postings.

For more information, the full article can be accessed at:  http://tcllp.ca/2017/04/internet-cases-on-websites-involved-with-scraping/