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The purpose of this paper is to examine how claims to “ownership” are asserted over publicly accessible platform data and critically assess the nature and scope of rights to reuse these data.

Using Airbnb as a case study, this paper examines the data ecosystem that arises around publicly accessible platform data. It analyzes current statute and case law in order to understand the state of the law around the scraping of such data.

This paper demonstrates that there is considerable uncertainty about the practice of data scraping, and that there are risks in allowing the law to evolve in the context of battles between business competitors without a consideration of the broader public interest in data scraping. It argues for a data ecosystem approach that can keep the public dimension issues more squarely within the frame when data scraping is judicially considered.

The nature of some sharing economy platforms requires that a large subset of their data be publicly accessible. These data can be used to understand how platform companies operate, to assess their compliance with laws and regulations and to evaluate their social and economic impacts. They can also be used in different kinds of data analytics. Such data are therefore sought after by civil society organizations, researchers, entrepreneurs and regulators. This paper considers who has a right to control access to and use of these data, and addresses current uncertainties in how the law will apply to scraping activities, and builds an argument for a consideration of the public interest in data scraping.

The issue of ownership/control over publicly accessible information is of growing importance; this paper offers a framework for approaching these legal questions.

Companies, governments and individuals are using data to create new services such as apps, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). These data-driven services rely on large pools of data and a relatively unhindered flow of data across borders (few market access or governance barriers). The current approach to governing cross-border data flows through trade agreements and has not led to binding, universal or interoperable rules governing the use of data. The purpose of this article is to explain the new role of data in trade and to explain why data in trade is different from trade in other goods and services. We then suggest a new approach at the national and international levels.

The author uses a mixed methods approach to examine what the literature says about data as a traded good and or service, examines metaphors regarding the role of data in the economy, and then examines whether or not data is really “traded.”

Many countries do not know how to regulate data driven services. There is no consensus on what the appropriate regulatory environment looks like, nor is there a consensus on what are the barriers to cross-border data flows and what constitutes legitimate domestic regulation.

This is the first article to explain both the unique nature of data and the ineffectiveness of the trade system to address that distinctiveness.