Craigslist Inc. v. 3Taps Inc.

Craigslist Inc. v. 3Taps Inc.
Court	United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Full case name	CRAIGSLIST INC., Plaintiff, v. 3TAPS INC. ET AL., Defendants.
Decided	N/A
Holding
Craigslist took adequate measures to revoke 3Taps's authorization and to notify 3Taps in order to sue for CFAA violation
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Charles R. Breyer
Keywords
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trademark, copyright, breach of contract

Craigslist Inc. v. 3Taps Inc., 942 F.Supp.2d 962 (N.D. Cal. 2013) was a Northern District of California Court case in which the court held that sending a cease-and-desist letter and enacting an IP address block is sufficient notice of online trespassing, which a plaintiff can use to claim a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

3Taps and PadMapper were companies that partnered to provide an alternative user interface for browsing Craigslist's housing ads. In doing so, they scraped Craigslist's site for data, which Craigslist did not approve of. Craigslist sent both companies a cease-and-desist letter and blocked their IP addresses, but this did not stop 3Taps from scraping through other IP addresses. Craigslist then sued, resulting in this case.

In pre-trial motions 3Taps moved to dismiss the lawsuit on multiple grounds. In response, the court issued an order that set precedent on whether online hosts can use the CFAA to protect public data. The court held that sending a cease and desist letter and blocking a client's IP address are sufficient to qualify as notice under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The court also held that 3Taps should have known that Craigslist was revoking its authorization to access the site.^[1] The motion to dismiss was granted in part, and denied in part.

On June 26, 2015, Craigslist came to separate settlements with 3Taps and Padmapper.^[2] Both settlements required the defendants to permanently stop taking content from Craigslist, directly or indirectly. 3Taps paid $1,000,000 which Craigslist will donate to the EFF over ten years. Press coverage said that 3Taps would shut down, but as of July 16 it was still active with content from other sites.