''Craigslist Inc. v. 3Taps Inc.'', 942 F.Supp.2d 962 (N.D. Cal. 2013) was a Northern District of California Court case in which the court held that sending a
cease-and-desist
A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not disc ...
letter and enacting an IP address block is sufficient notice of online
trespass
Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land.
Trespass to the person historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, wounding ...
ing, which a plaintiff can use to claim a violation of the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA) is a United States cybersecurity bill that was enacted in 1986 as an amendment to existing computer fraud law (), which had been included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The law pr ...
.
3Taps and PadMapper were companies that partnered to provide an alternative user interface for browsing
Craigslist
Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, Gig worker, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.
Craig Newmark ...
's housing ads. In doing so, they scraped Craigslist's site for data, which Craigslist did not approve of. Craigslist sent both companies a cease-and-desist letter and blocked their
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
es, but this did not stop 3Taps from scraping through other IP addresses. Craigslist then
sued
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil acti ...
, resulting in this case.
In pre-trial motions 3Taps moved to dismiss the lawsuit on multiple grounds. In response, the court issued an order that set
precedent
A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great valu ...
on whether online hosts can use the CFAA to protect
public data Public data may refer to:
*Open data
*any data that inadvertently becomes public affecting information privacy
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Reactions
The court, in many instances, pointed to Craigslist's cease-and-desist letter as evidence that 3Taps knew that its authorization had been revoked.
Law professor
Eric Goldman
Eric Goldman (born April 15, 1968) is a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. He also co-directs the law school's High Tech Law Institute. and co-supervises the law school's Privacy Law Certificate.
Career overview
Goldman is ...
questioned this, stating that " ease-and-desist lettersare wish lists by the senders. They describe what the sender wants to happen." As such they may easily overstate what a defendant must lawfully do. Goldman found it troubling that the court had treated the cease and desist letter as a legally-binding document that revoked 3Taps's authorization to access Craigslist.
Critics of the decision have called it anti-competitive.
They claimed that this case sets a precedent that allows businesses to use the CFAA to keep public data away from competitors.
Further, they highlighted that such a holding sets a precedent of marginalizing the public good for the prosperity of a single business.
The case has also brought criticism towards Craigslist for enforcing its exclusive copyright of user-generated content.
The critics pointed out that the entire lawsuit depended on a short, one-week-long period where Cragslist's terms of use required that users assign Craigslist the exclusive copyright of any posted content.
While some users may be happy to have other companies use their classified ads, another reaction was that there may also be users who do not want it.
Craigslist would be under similar criticism if it had allowed the sharing and violated these users' privacy expectations.
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...
was critical of the court's decision to uphold Craiglist's copyright claim in their temporary terms of service between July 26, 2012 and August 8, 2012. Stating, "claiming an exclusive license to users' posts to the exclusion of everyone—including the original poster—threatens both innovation and users’ rights, and, even worse, sets terrible precedent."