A recent US district court decision in a lawsuit brought by Facebook and Instagram carries important lessons for counsel in the drafting and negotiation of survival clauses—clauses that purport to extend the operative effect of contractual obligations beyond the termination or expiration of the relationship.
The case is Meta Platforms, Inc. v. Bright Data Ltd. (ND Cal 2024).
Meta Platforms, the owner of both sites, brought a breach of contract action against Bright Data, alleging that Bright Data violated online terms of service and use by scraping (anonymized) user data and selling access to analysis of it. The terms of both sites prohibit the collection of user data via automated means and the selling of such data.
In adjudicating cross motions for summary judgment, the district court held that the Facebook and Instagram terms do not prohibit logged off public data scraping even during periods when the scraper has an account. More importantly, scraping after termination of such accounts, the court ruled, was likewise not prohibited—despite the existence of a survival clause that purported to extend the applicability of the anti-scraping clauses beyond termination of the user’s accounts.
