The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is the primary federal anti-hacking statute. For platform governance, CFAA is foundational because it provides the legal framework under which platforms define and enforce 'authorized access' through their terms of service.
The Supreme Court's 2021 decision in Van Buren v. United States narrowed 'exceeds authorized access' to mean accessing information a person is not entitled to, rather than using permitted access for impermissible purposes.
Platform terms of service routinely reference CFAA-adjacent concepts: prohibitions on scraping, automated access, reverse engineering, and accessing accounts without authorization.
Get alerted when platforms change their policies — including CFAA-relevant provisions.
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