Meta Platforms, Inc. v. Bright Data Ltd.

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META PLATFORMS, INC., Plaintiffs, v. BRIGHT DATA LTD., Defendants.

No. 23-cv-00077-EMC

United States District Court, N.D. California

January 23, 2024

ORDER DENYING META'S MOTION FOR PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT; AND GRANTING BRIGHT DATA'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

DOCKET NOS. 75, 105

EDWARD M. CHEN, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

This is a data-scraping case brought by Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) against Bright Data Ltd. (“Bright Data”). Before the Court is Bright Data's motion for summary judgment and Meta's cross-motion for partial summary judgment. Meta seeks partial summary judgment in its favor on its breach of contract claims as to the issue of liability. Bright Data seeks summary judgment in its favor as to Meta's breach of contract claims. For the reasons below, the Court DENIES Meta's cross-motion for partial summary judgment and GRANTS Bright Data's motion for summary judgment.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. The Parties

1. Meta

Plaintiff Meta is a company headquartered in California that operates, among other products, Facebook and Instagram. Docket No. 1 (“Compl.”) at ¶¶ 4, 14, 15. Facebook is a social networking website and mobile application that allows its users to “create their own personal profiles and connect with each other.” Id. at ¶ 14. When a user creates a Facebook account, they are required to create a password and register with their name, email, or mobile phone number, date of birth, and gender. Id. at ¶ 17. Meta also operates Instagram, a photo and video sharing website and mobile application. Id. at ¶ 15. Instagram users can create a personal profile, post photos and videos to their profile, and “view, comment on, and like posts shared by others on Instagram.” Id. To create an Instagram account, users must register with their email address and create a username and password, which then allows them to create user profiles and add information about themselves to those profiles. Id.

Meta allows users to control how to customize their profiles and how much information they would like to include in their profiles. Id. at ¶ 18. For example, someone who is not logged into Facebook or Instagram can only view a “limited amount of content.” Id. at ¶ 16. They can only see content that users have allowed the public to see, but not content that is set to “private” or limited to specific audiences such as a user's friends. Id. at ¶ 30b. After a non-logged in individual views a certain amount of information or tries to engage with the content such as “lik[ing]” or commenting on a photo, Meta's “lockout mechanism” redirects them to a login screen that prompts them to either create an account or log into an existing account. Id. at ¶¶ 16, 30b.

Meta has approved certain means for Facebook and Instagram users to share data with third parties, including through Application Programming Interfaces (“APIs”). Id. at ¶ 19. “Authorized” APIs can access data from Facebook and Instagram, but they must agree to Meta's Terms of Service (the “Facebook Terms”) and Instagram's Terms of Use (the “Instagram Terms”) (together, the “Terms”) to do so. Id.

However, Meta has also developed a variety of technologies to combat unauthorized automated data scraping. Id. at ¶ 30. Data scraping is a means to extract data from a website or app, usually using automation. Id. at ¶ 29. The technological restrictions Meta uses to combat scraping and “suspicious” activity include its lockout mechanism; imposing rate and data limits that restrict the number of times anyone can interact with Meta's computers and view certain types of data; subjecting individuals to technical checks called “reCAPTCHAs” or “CAPTCHAs” to confirm they are human; and deploying machine-learning models and tools that detect and block automated scraping and suspicious account activity including “inauthentic behavior, compromised accounts, and automated accounts. Id. at ¶ 30.

2. Bright Data

Defendant Bright Data is a company with its principal place of business in Israel that operates the website brightdata.com. Id. at ¶ 5. Bright Data is an “internet company” that “searches the web for information” and sells data collected from various websites, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Amazon, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Etsy, and Bing, among others, and scraping tools and services. Docket No. 75 (Bright Data's Mot. for Summ. J.) (“Bright Data's Mot.”)) at 3; Compl. at ¶ 6. Bright Data's customers include “Fortune 500 companies, academic institutions, and small businesses, who use Bright Data's technologies to search for, retrieve, and synthesize Internet data.” Id. at ¶ 4.

Bright Data offers a variety of services to customers. First, its “proxy network service” is an “intermediary server, device, or server application that sits between an end user and a website or other server.” Kol Decl. Ex. 1 at ¶¶ 3-4. The proxy network allows Bright Data customers to “browse the [I]nternet anonymously by redirecting their communications through other third-party devices that are under contract with Bright Data.” Id. at ¶ 6. In addition, Bright Data's proxy customers may use a Bright Data tool called “Web Unlocker,” a tool Bright Data claims is designed to prevent website operators like Meta from “us[ing] various techniques to blacklist members of the public” from accessing public information on the Internet. Id. at ¶¶ 14-15 (emphasis in original). Second, Bright Data's “self-managed data collector” service includes a tool named the Web Scraper Integrated Development Environment (“Webscraper IDE”). Id. at ¶ 20. The Webscraper IDE helps programmers “develop their search codes, including certain templates, debugging tools, and pre-coded, commonly used functions.” Id. at ¶¶ 22-23. When customers use the proxy network service and the self-managed data collector service, customers decide which specific web pages they would like to search (including “automated and non-automated searching” in the case of the proxy network). Id. at ¶¶ 10, 12-13, 24-25. Bright Data claims these services are used only for “‘logged-off' or non-member access to public websites.” Id. at ¶ 13. In short, Bright Data asserts it only scrapes publicly available data. It does not scrape data which is only accessible to a logged-in Meta user. It does not scrape, e.g., password protected data.

Bright Data also provides a “managed data collector” service. Customers who use this service do not conduct the searches themselves. Kol Decl. at ¶¶ 31-34. Instead, they make specific requests to Bright Data, and Bright Data prepares “customized data sets ... based on its own searches” to respond to the request. Id. at ¶ 27. To “streamline” its own search design process, Bright Data has developed “Web scraper” templates to create custom searches for customers, including the “Facebook Scraper” and the “Instagram Scraper.” Id. at ¶ 28; see also Compl. at ¶¶ 36-37. Lastly, Bright Data “designs, creates, and sells,” its “standardized” or premade datasets. Id. at ¶ 34. A standardized dataset customer simply purchases an “off-the-shelf” dataset rather than one that responds to a specific customer request. Id.

Bright Data claims that its services allow customers to search for “public data that others choose to make available on the Internet.” Id. at ¶ 2. It also claims that none of its services require customers to be Meta users or have a user account, “even when searching Meta websites.” Id. at ¶ 4. In addition, Bright Data claims that its services “do not require customers to provide Meta log-in information; they do not ask customers to provide Meta log-in information; they do not contain any fields in which customers can input Meta log-in information; and they do not autopopulate any fields on Meta sites with Meta log-in information.” Id.

B. Meta's Allegations

Meta alleges that Bright Data “developed and used unauthorized automation software to scrape data from Facebook and Instagram, including users' profile information, followers, and posts that users have shared with others”; that Bright Data advertised the sale of such scraped data; and that Bright Data “developed, tested, and sold tools and services that enable others to scrape [such data] and to avoid detection by Meta and other websites.” Id. at ¶ 2. Meta alleges that Defendant's conduct “violated several Facebook and Instagram terms and policies” even when Bright Data scrapes only publicly available data. Meta alleges Bright Data refused to permanently cease these activities when demanded by Meta to do so. Id. at ¶ 3. Meta brought its lawsuit for damages and injunctive relief to halt Bright Data's alleged violations of Facebook and Instagram's terms and policies, claiming both breach of contract and tortious interference with contract. Id. at ¶¶ 2, 69-70.

Bright Data moved for summary judgment on Meta's breach of contract claim, asserting that its scraping publicly available data is not prohibited by the Meta, Facebook, or Instagram Terms. It raises the defenses of lack of mutual assent and lack of consideration and disputes the application of Meta's Terms to any scraping done after terminating its Facebook and Instagram accounts. See Bright Data's Mot. Meta filed a cross-motion for partial summary judgment as to liability for breach of contract and an opposition to Bright Data's motion for summary judgment, arguing that Meta's Terms created a valid and enforceable contract, and that Bright Data was bound by and breached the Terms by its scraping activities. See Docket No. 105 (Meta's Opp. To Bright Data's Mot. for Summ. J. & Cross-Mot. for Partial Summ. J. (“Meta's Opp.”)). These motions are now pending before the Court.

C. Undisputed Facts

1. Contract Existence and Enforceability

Bright Data admits that it maintained “one or more”...