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Google Says Clearview's Site Scraping Is Wrong; Clearview Reminds Google It Scrapes Sites All The Time

Google Says Clearview's Site Scraping Is Wrong; Clearview Reminds Google It Scrapes Sites All The Time

4 years ago
Anonymous $-riAjkQg_1

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200205/14263943864/google-says-clearviews-site-scraping-is-wrong-clearview-reminds-google-it-scrapes-sites-all-time.shtml

Clearview's business model has resulted in some mutual finger pointing. The most infamous of facial recognition tech companies outsources its database development. Rather than seeking input from interested parties, it scrapes sites for pictures of faces and whatever personal info accompanies them. The scraped info forms the contents of its facial recognition database, putting law enforcement only a few app clicks away from accessing over 3 billion images.

The companies being scraped have claimed this is a violation of their terms of service, if not actually illegal. It's not clear that it's actually illegal, even if it does violate the restrictions placed on users of these services. Twitter has already sent a cease-and-desist to Clearview, but it will probably take a court to make this stick. Unfortunately, Clearview's actions could lead to some damaging precedent if Twitter forces the issue. Given the number of sites affected by Clearview's scraping efforts, it's probably only a matter of time before this gets litigious.