Web Scraping28 min read
Ethics and Legal Use
Understand ethical and legal boundaries of web scraping: robots.txt, terms of service, personal data, and responsible usage.
David Miller
December 21, 2025
0.0k0
Scraping power comes with responsibility.
You must know: What is allowed. What is risky. What is illegal.
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Check robots.txt Example: https://example.com/robots.txt
If disallowed, do not scrape.
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Read Terms of Service Many sites forbid scraping. Respect them.
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Avoid personal data Never collect: - emails - phone numbers - passwords - private profiles
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Ethical rules - scrape slowly - don’t overload servers - identify yourself if possible - stop if asked
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Real world use cases Good: - price comparison - research - public datasets
Bad: - stealing content - bypassing paywalls - abusing systems
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Graph: responsible scraping
```mermaid flowchart TD A[Want to Scrape] --> B{Allowed?} B -->|Yes| C[Scrape Responsibly] B -->|No| D[Do Not Scrape] ```
Remember - Legal issues can be serious - Always prefer official APIs - Be a responsible developer
#Python#Advanced#Ethics