Research On Criminal Regulation Of Data Grabbing Behavior Of Web Crawlers

With the development of Internet technology and digital products,the behavior of crawlers to capture data has extended to every corner of the Internet space,and the regulation problems related to crawler technology also arise.Currently,the legal regulation of crawler-related data capture behavior in China is confusing.With the pronouncement of the first case that the behavior of web crawlers capturing data constitutes a crime in our country,the academic circles begin to think about the necessity and rationality of using criminal means to regulate the behavior of web crawlers capturing data.As a neutral technology,web crawlers benefit all aspects of people’s lives,but when neutral technology is used improperly and indefinitely,it is difficult to escape punishment.Nowadays,the use of web crawlers to capture data is becoming more and more widespread,encroaching on the legal rights and interests protected by the criminal law,which has serious social harmfulness.The web crawling behavior needs to be included in the scope of criminal law regulations urgently,thus triggering the study of criminal regulations on the use of web crawler technology to capture data.Scholars’ research on web crawling behavior inevitably introduces its criminal legal risks,but mostly descriptive,it is difficult to explain the criminal regulations of web crawling behavior from a system perspective.From the perspective of the problem,this paper starts to analyze and clarify the relevant theory,and provides an effective solution for the criminal regulation of crawler’s data capture behavior.In the context of criminal law,web crawling is an automatic and efficient behavior,aiming at large-scale capture of data information in the Internet,computer systems and other spaces,and infringing on the legal interests protected by the criminal law.When web crawling technology is used in crime instead of search engine,its social harmfulness and influence will increase rapidly in depth and breadth,which will seriously affect social order.Malicious web crawlers not only violate the criminal law and regulations,but also have serious infringement of legal interests.Technological neutrality is no longer a shield for punishment.Neutral technology needs criminal regulation.There are many problems in the criminal regulation of crawler’s data capture behavior.First,there is a lack of criteria for determining the crime of conduct and noncrime.Network crawling is changing from civil control to criminal control,but it does not mean that civil and criminal liability are indistinguishable or indistinguishable.After combing the status of judicial regulation of network crawling,it is found that there is no uniform standard for the determination of crime and non-crime in judicial practice,and there is confusion in the application of law.Secondly,the legal effect of the crawler agreement is unclear.Web crawler protocol reflects the authorization will of the website.It is important to judge whether the behavior of crawler grabbing data belongs to unauthorized or beyond authorized intrusion into computer system,and to judge whether the behavior is criminal illegal.However,in practice,all parties have a great controversy over the nature and validity of the network crawler agreement,which is generally considered not to have legal validity and can only be constrained by industry norms or ethics.However,this determination will bring greater challenges to the protection of data property rights and can not cope with the rampant situation of the network crawler crime.Therefore,it is urgent to confirm the legal validity of the network crawler agreement.Finally,due to the increasingly "pocket" of the object of data representation rights and the blurred boundary of the network crawler crime system,the network crawler crime is often punished as the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system,resulting in the trend of "pocket crime" in this crime.In view of the above problems in the process of criminal regulation of web crawling,we should consider the following aspects to improve its criminal regulation.First,objective illegality and subjective guilt are the form criteria to judge the crime of web crawler’s seizing data.Reasonable use and seizure of public data can be the substantial cause of guilt of web crawler’s behavior.Secondly,the web crawler agreement is legally valid.The reasonable content of the network crawler protocol is the precondition for its validity.It is not allowed to use the network crawler protocol to implement data monopoly and unfair competition.Moreover,the use of natural language in the content of the network crawler protocol makes the protocol more legally effective.Finally,according to the data itself carries different legal interests,distinguishes the physical attributes and rights attributes of the data,distinguishes the differences between data crimes and other computer crimes and traditional crimes according to the different types of legal interests infringed by the behavior,so as to achieve the purpose of "pocket crime",and reasonably limits the punishment scope of the crime of crawler seizing data.