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I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it there is some precedent in the US of intentionally ignoring robots.txt being unauthorized computer access, exposing you to all the liability that entails (possibly criminal).

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I'd like to see an actual case reference for this. I've never heard of ignoring robots.txt resulting in any kind of legal action.

It would take a pretty big leap to go from robots.txt is advisory to ignoring it constitutes a criminal action.

Internet Archive was sued unsuccessfully. As I understand it a lawsuit is still in process against Google on the topic. So I guess the precedent is weaker than I thought, but still: tread carefully.

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