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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteRobots.txt and Terms of Service are different kinds of restrictions. Robots.txt communicates crawler instructions; the Internet Engineering Task Force’s RFC 9309 expressly says those rules are not access authorization. A Terms of Service restriction may be enforceable as a contract if an applicable agreement was formed, but that depends on the facts and governing law. Neither point makes every act of scraping lawful or unlawful: access controls, a website’s response, the material collected, and other legal claims can all matter.
What is the difference between robots.txt and Terms of Service?
| Restriction | What it does | What it does not establish by itself |
|---|---|---|
| robots.txt | Communicates crawler instructions under the Robots Exclusion Protocol. RFC 9309, an Internet Standards Track specification published by the IETF in September 2022, describes how crawlers should access and process the file. | It is not an access-control gateway, and its rules are not themselves access authorization under RFC 9309. |
| Terms of Service | Sets out a website operator’s proposed terms for use. A restriction may create a contractual obligation if an applicable agreement was formed and is enforceable under the governing law. | The existence of posted terms alone does not establish that every visitor assented to them or that every restriction is enforceable. |
| Cease-and-desist notice | Communicates that the operator objects to an activity and may be relevant to the parties’ dispute and subsequent conduct. | It does not automatically turn access to every publicly viewable page into a crime or resolve whether a contract or other claim applies. |
RFC 9309 puts the distinction plainly: “These rules are not a form of access authorization.” That describes the protocol’s status; it does not mean robots.txt instructions are meaningless in every practical or legal context. Nor does a robots.txt directive, on its own, function as a password or form a contract with every crawler operator.
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Is robots.txt legally binding?
Not as access authorization under RFC 9309. The standard sets out crawler protocol behavior, rather than a legislative rule that itself grants or denies permission to enter a website. A site can use robots.txt to state which paths it asks crawlers to avoid, and a crawler may choose to honor those instructions. But the file alone is not equivalent to a technical barrier, and ignoring a directive does not by itself answer whether a separate law or agreement has been violated.
Whether a robots.txt file has some relevance to a particular dispute is a separate question from whether it authorizes access. The Ninth Circuit’s 2019 hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp. opinion described robots.txt compliance as voluntary in the context of its discussion of public profile scraping. That observation did not decide every possible contract, tort, privacy, or other claim.
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Can a website enforce its Terms of Service against scraping?
Potentially, if the terms apply and the requirements for an enforceable agreement are met. A court’s analysis may depend on matters such as how the terms were presented, whether the scraper had notice and assented under the governing law, what the terms say, and what conduct followed. Those questions are fact-specific; a posted restriction is not automatically enforceable against every person who visits a public page.
Contract is only one possible legal issue. A Terms of Service dispute is not the same as a claim under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and a conclusion about one claim does not resolve the others. Copyright, privacy, state-law tort, and other rules may also be relevant, depending on the content, collection method, use, and jurisdiction.
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Does ignoring robots.txt make web scraping illegal?
Not by itself. RFC 9309 says robots.txt rules are not access authorization, so the fact that a crawler disobeyed a directive does not alone establish that it accessed a protected system without authorization. But that narrow point is not blanket permission to scrape. An operator may have other grounds to object, and the method and circumstances of access can change the analysis.
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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Distinguish a publicly viewable page from an authenticated or otherwise restricted area. Signing in, using an account, bypassing a technical barrier, continuing after access is revoked, or collecting protected personal or copyrighted material can raise issues beyond robots.txt compliance. The relevant facts include what controls were in place, whether they were bypassed, and what harm or other impact resulted.
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Can a cease-and-desist letter make access to a public website unauthorized?
It does not automatically settle that question under the CFAA. The Ninth Circuit’s 2022 hiQ opinion considered LinkedIn’s demand that hiQ stop scraping publicly viewable profiles. On remand after the Supreme Court’s 2021 Van Buren decision, the Ninth Circuit again affirmed preliminary relief, concluding that hiQ raised serious questions about whether the CFAA covered access to generally accessible information after a targeted refusal.
The court’s decision was about whether a preliminary injunction was justified, not a final declaration that public scraping is lawful in every circumstance. The panel also distinguished the CFAA’s “without authorization” language from the “exceeds authorized access” clause addressed in Van Buren; it said Van Buren reinforced its reasoning but did not directly decide the “without authorization” question. The rulings concerned a particular dispute and do not decide contract claims or every state-law or other claim.
How do access circumstances change the analysis?
| Situation | Why it matters | What cannot be concluded from that fact alone |
|---|---|---|
| Information is available to anyone without logging in | Public availability was important to the Ninth Circuit’s preliminary CFAA analysis in hiQ. | It does not establish a universal right to scrape, dispose of contract claims, or determine the law outside that case’s posture and jurisdiction. |
| Access requires an account, authentication, or permission | Access conditions and whether permission was granted or revoked are relevant to the circumstances of entry. | The existence of a login alone does not resolve every legal issue; the facts and applicable law still matter. |
| A crawler encounters an IP block or other technical control | Whether a scraper bypassed a restriction can materially distinguish the conduct from simply requesting an openly available page. | A technical restriction does not, without further analysis, answer every contract, statutory, or state-law question. |
| The operator sends a cease-and-desist notice | The notice can show that the operator objected and may affect the later factual and legal analysis. | Under the limited Ninth Circuit hiQ preliminary-injunction rulings, a targeted refusal did not automatically resolve the CFAA issue for generally accessible information. |
| Collection is high-volume or causes demonstrable harm | Scale, server burden, protected interests, and evidence of harm may matter. The 2019 Ninth Circuit opinion noted that trespass-to-chattels claims may be available in some circumstances where scraping exceeds consent and causes demonstrable harm. | The court did not decide that claim in hiQ, and harm or volume alone does not establish liability without applying the relevant law to the facts. |
What should a scraper or site operator check?
For a particular U.S. dispute, separate the questions instead of treating robots.txt, a posted term, and a cease-and-desist as interchangeable signals:
- Identify the access conditions. Was the material open to anyone, behind a login, limited to particular accounts, or protected by technical controls?
- Check the terms and assent facts. What restriction applied, how was it presented, and is there evidence the person or service agreed to it under the governing law?
- Record any revocation or objection. Note what the operator communicated and whether accounts, IP addresses, or other access methods were blocked or limited.
- Assess the collection and its effects. Consider the data and content involved, the scale and frequency of requests, the use of collected material, and evidence of service burden or other harm.
- Analyze each potential claim separately. A CFAA theory, contract claim, state-law tort, copyright issue, or privacy claim has its own requirements; a ruling on one does not decide the rest.
- Establish the governing jurisdiction and procedural posture. The hiQ opinions are Ninth Circuit decisions about preliminary relief, not a nationwide final merits ruling or a substitute for analysis under another jurisdiction’s law.
The 2019 and 2022 Ninth Circuit hiQ decisions are useful for understanding the distinction between public accessibility and authorization under the CFAA, but they do not verify later case dispositions, current terms for any particular site, or the law in every court. A situation-specific conclusion requires checking the current governing law and the facts of the access and agreement.
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