CALL

How regulating the ownership of data has been defined as “the most important political question of our era”. One important piece of that puzzle is represented by the access and use of publicly available data on privately owned websites. Normally, data transfer between business operators is accomplished using data structures suited for automated processing by computers (e.g. XML feds). Sometimes, however, these mechanisms for data interchange are not available, mainly because of data owners' conflicting interests.

In this event, data scraping is often the unique viable solution to get essential information. Web scraping systems (bots, crawlers or spiders) simulate the human processing that occurs when viewing a webpage to automatically extract data. Possible uses range from monitoring competitors to provide pro-competitive services like meta-search engines, price comparison sites and online booking agencies.

Due to risks of bandwidth overload as well as loss of advertisement revenue and/or control over the contents, web scraping is often fiercely opposed by sites operators. This has caused an ongoing judicial battle.

From an ethical point of view there is no consensus on the (un)fairness of such practice and this “grey area” is mirrored by the legal framework as well.

This call aims to focus on how the phenomenon has been addressed by different jurisdictions. At this stage, most of the countries around the globe does not have pieces of legislation addressing specifically web scraping practices and courts have tackled them from totally different perspectives and angles. With such different approaches, the degree of protection for proprietary contents on websites is not settled and may vary significantly from country to country.

We welcome submissions focusing on any area of the law, as long as they centre around technologies recording information gathered during use of a site’s features. For illustrative purposes only, relevant submission topics might relate to:

1) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: Several jurisdiction address the phenomenon under the lens of copyright protection or sui generis right for the creators of databases which do not qualify for copyright. Other jurisdiction stretched trade secrecy law to cover also the content of publicly available datasets.

2) DATA PROTECTION & PUBLIC SECTOR INFORMATION REUSE: Website session replay technologies record visitor’s interaction (such as mouse movements, clicks etc.) with the website, without their consent. This leads to relevant data protection issues. If the database owner is a public entity, the law may establish some right of access to such data.

3) COMPETITION LAW: Data could be deemed an essential facility. A refusal of that data holder to grant a third party access to their data may be qualified as an abuse of dominance. A data monopolist could thus be forced to make parts of their unique data available, allowing competition law to be used in cases of a ‘refusal to deal’.

4) TORT AND CRIMINAL LAW: Criminal law can address data scraping operations as well, relying for instance upon hacking, computer frauds or abuses. Torts like trespass, conversion, unjust enrichment or misappropriation may be enforced as well against data scraping.

Though we require a focus on legal subjects, we encourage interdisciplinary approaches and perspectives from other academic disciplines such as history, economics, sociology and political science.

For authors interested in discussing informally the topic of a possible contribution, please email at jacopo.cianisciolla@unito.it

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Ugo Pagallo (University of Turin)

Massimo Durante (University of Turin)

Jacopo Ciani Sciolla (University of Turin)

Andreea Verteș-Olteanu (Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara)

Carmen Tirado Robles (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Ana Gascón Marcén (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Juan Luis López Aranguren (Universidad de Zaragoza)

DEADLINES

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - 31 MAY 2023: Submit a CV, title and abstract of prox 500 words to jacopo.cianisciolla@unito.it. Indicate whether the contribution has already been published or is a work in progress, and whether the author(s) are available to join the conference in person or online. Preference will be given to in-person presentations.

PAPER'S SUBMISSION - 30 SEPTEMBER 2023: Notification of acceptance shall follow. Selected presenters will be expected to submit a working draft paper of no more than 10,000 words (including footnotes) to be shared with other conference participants.

CONFERENCE - 14 NOVEMBER 2023: An international conference aimed at collecting different experiences and scenarios around the data scraping issues shall be held at the University of Turin, School of Law. Subject to request, limited funds shall be available for covering travel- related expenses of presenters without their own funds.

PUBLICATION  - END OF 2023: The aim is to publish peer reviewed papers in an edited volume or journal special issue.