To Whom Do Data Belong?——Data Ownership and Protection in the Context of Web-Crawlers

Platform data has already become an important asset for web-based companies, but this sort of data frequently includes large amounts of personal information. Platform data can be seen as belonging to an individual, belonging to a platform, belonging to some combinations of the two, or can be seen as a form of Internet-based public data. Analysis of legal clauses and doctrines as well as analysis based in legitimacy and consequentialism both fail to completely delineate data ownership. One potential reason for this is that there are many types of platform data, and that each type is highly dependent on circumstances. The determination of rights in regard to platform data should be done in a way which revolves around a contextual regulatory framework, one in which the rules of reason is applied on a case-by-case basis and in which gradual changes are done in a bottom-up manner, and not one which seeks to establish a universal set of data regulations. In actual judgments, factors such as the nature of the platform and the nature of the data crawling behavior should be comprehensively considered while ensuring a balance of data circulation and data protection.