Question 1

Is web scraping legal?

Accepted Answer

It depends on jurisdiction, target site, and data type. Public, non-personal data on sites without an explicit anti-scraping clause is generally fine. Personal data, gated content, paywalled content, or anything explicitly forbidden in TOS is not. We map this with you in writing before we build.

Question 2

What about Cloudflare / DataDome / Akamai?

Accepted Answer

We work with sites that have those defences, but only when the rest of the engagement passes the legal/ethical bar. We don't operate stealth infrastructure for high-volume evasion of services that exist specifically to enforce TOS.

Question 3

How do you handle proxies?

Accepted Answer

We use residential proxy rotation only where the target's defences require it, and at a volume calibrated to look like a polite client rather than a botnet. We bill proxy spend at cost.

Question 4

How fresh will the data be?

Accepted Answer

From hourly to once-a-day, depending on what the target tolerates and what your use case actually needs. Faster than the target tolerates gets you blocked — we'll tell you the realistic floor.

Question 5

Where does the output go?

Accepted Answer

Wherever you want it: a Postgres or warehouse table, S3/CSV, a webhook into your product, a Slack post. We pick to fit your downstream workflow.

Question 6

Will it break when the target redesigns?

Accepted Answer

Eventually, yes — that's the nature of scraping. Under a retainer, we keep it healthy. Outside one, we re-engage when the target breaks. Structural-change alerting means you find out the same day, not next quarter.

Question 7

Can the scraped data feed an [AI agent](/services/ai-agent-development) or [automation script](/services/automation-scripts)?

Accepted Answer

Yes — many engagements pair scraping with downstream automation or agentic reasoning. We build the whole flow end-to-end.

Question 8

What you won't scrape

Accepted Answer

Personal data without lawful basis, paywalled or auth-walled content, social media platforms in violation of TOS, sites that have explicitly sent us a cease-and-desist, anything that imposes meaningful cost on the target's infrastructure.

Scraping for media — competitive intelligence at the pace of the news cycle.

What we ship for media & publishing teams

Media & publishing-specific considerations

Other media & publishing-aligned services

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