Ethical usage

Full consent from our peers

Bright Data attains its peers (Residential and Mobile IPs) through the Bright SDK, which is integrated into applications as another form of app monetization.
App users are presented with the option to opt-in to the Bright Data Network and become a peer (share their device idle resources) in exchange for an ad-free or free application. All peers sharing resources with the Bright Data residential network have personally opted-in and may opt-out at any time.

Protecting our peers

Once an app user has approved to share their device resources (becoming a peer) our infrastructure ensures traffic is only routed under strict conditions in a manner that will not substantially affect the device's operation.

Improved user-experience

App owners that work with the Bright SDK have seen an increase in user-experience by being able to remove ads while still generating revenues. The app users themselves enjoy this ad-free experience without being affected by the Bright SDK as they are only active peers under strict conditions. All users who choose to opt-in and become a peer receive some form of value-added compensation such as an ad-free app experience.

No collection of end-user data

The Bright SDK is only interested in the IP addresses themselves.
No user-data or personal data is collected upon opting-in or throughout the time the peer is part of the Bright Data Network.

Dedicated compliance officer

The Bright Data compliance officers personally handle every report of abuse including investigating warning and blocking suspicious clients. Our multi-faceted system includes a combination of internal safeguards in conjunction with external vendor reports to identify unethical activity patterns amongst clients who are promptly disabled accordingly.

Verified use cases only

Approved use of the Bright Data network includes gathering data for website testing, price comparison, travel data aggregation, brand protection, and actions of a similar nature for business intelligence. We do not accept any use of our network that aims to emulate a real user in return for direct payment, misleading purposes or fraudulent activity. For more information, see our Acceptable Use Policy.

Usage monitoring

Bright Data uses two methods to ensure that our networks are free from abuse. The first is automated within our systems that detects suspicious behavior and automatically blocks the particular client while notifying the compliance team. The second is constant manual checks done by the compliance officers themselves. These manual checks include conducting random and direct log checks in order to detect any misuse of our network.

Ensuring transparency and control for website owners with bright data tools

In our commitment to ethical data practices, Bright Data has developed
innovative tools to maximize transparency and control for webmasters.
The Bright Data Webmaster Console and the collectors.txt file are
instrumental in managing data interaction and defining specific site
parameters.

BrightBot, our proprietary crawler, respects these parameters while
ensuring adherence to ethical data collection standards. Its role is pivotal in maintaining the health of targeted domains and preventing
unauthorized access or misuse of sensitive endpoints.

Our suite of tools collectively contributes to a data collection
environment that is transparent, efficient, and respectful. For an in-depth understanding of these tools, please visit our comprehensive information page.

Strict no reselling policy

In order to maintain our strict standards and procedures, Bright Data does not allow the reselling of its networks or services without Bright Data's written authorization and under Bright Data's strict guidelines. By forbidding the reselling of our services we can guarantee that all access to the network is by accounts that have successfully passed our compliance check and have been approved by the compliance team and the senior compliance officer. We detect and immediately terminate any accounts that violate this rule.

Privacy compliance

Bright Data is fully committed to complying with all relevant data protection legal requirements, including the new EU data protection regulatory framework - the GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 - the CCPA. As an enthusiastic advocate of internet security and privacy, Bright Data understands the importance of providing data subjects with greater control of their privacy and data. Therefore, we have taken considerable efforts to ensure that our privacy practices comply with data protection laws, including the GDPR and CCPA, and the industry's best practices regarding, among other things, respecting data subjects' requests to exercise their rights and more.

The US Ninth Circuit Court recently reaffirmed the legality of scraping public web data.

New automated process – comprehensive address to global regulation

As part of its commitment to global regulation and transparency, Bright Data has launched a new automated process to notify people if, or when, their PII (Personal Identifiable Information) has been collected throughout the public domain by one of Bright Data's web data collection products.

Bright Data only collects public web data, and if during this process someone's email address is collected - although the user made it public - Bright Data will take new steps to notify them and provide them with the option to remove the email address from the web data collection platform.

Furthermore, to offer full transparency to the wider population, Bright Data has also opened a searchable database to allow verified email users the ability to view and manage their own online presence, including the presence of their PII (i.e. email addresses).

This database provides individuals with the ability to not only discover but also control whether their email addresses should appear in the public domain and to take steps to remove them from the public web.