Personal data and collection

Personal data collection is refused here. Competitor blogs still teach people to pull emails off Shopify storefronts and call it research. We will not. A coherent fingerprint is not a license to build a stranger list.

This page is the privacy line for the Scraping hub. Official channels and public pages stay in scope. Inboxes, customer CSVs, and harvested addresses do not.

What I mean by personal data

Names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, government IDs, account handles tied to a person, support tickets, anything you would not want scraped about you. Public product titles and prices are not that. A “contact us” mailto harvested at scale is.

What web scraping is on this site is headed or scripted collection within terms, robots, and official APIs. Anti-bot pages and official channels is the fork when a site said no. We will not hide a scraper is the detection twin of this ethics line.

What we will document instead

Playwright for pages you own. Python overview for public pages you are allowed to fetch. Tools criteria without a stealth shopping list. What a scraping browser is as a definition, not as a people-harvester.

Scraping behind login is not research. If the data is yours, export it from the admin. Store it in ops, not in a research profile. MaskWright isolates folders. It does not anonymize a harvested list. Only profiles.json is AES-256-GCM. A CSV of strangers in a profile dir is still a CSV of strangers.

A MaskWright profile does not change the ethics. Isolation keeps your store login off the research folder. It does not bless a headed pass over someone else’s checkout. If a page hides emails, that is not a puzzle. If robots.txt or terms say no, stop. If an anti-bot page appears, stop. Official APIs and your own admin exports remain in scope.

I keep notes in a local markdown folder with no names of strangers. Product URLs and public prices are fine. A spreadsheet of personal inboxes is not a “lead list” I will help you build. Competitors who still publish that tutorial are not a reason to match them.

Counsel can tell you what your jurisdiction allows. This blog will still not ship a harvest recipe.

Pushback I hear: “everyone else harvests emails.” That is not a criterion we will match. Official channels, public pages, your own exports. A coherent fingerprint is not a people-finder. If your growth plan starts at someone else’s checkout, this blog will not help you.

FAQ

What about GDPR public-interest journalism?

You are not getting a legal opinion from a product blog. If you have counsel and a lawful basis, you are not our customer for a stealth recipe. We still will not publish harvest how-tos.

Can I collect reviews?

Public reviews on a page you are allowed to fetch are a gray area of terms, not of “personal data harvest as a product.” Follow the site’s rules. Do not build a dossier.

Does MaskWright include a scraper?

No. It launches headed profiles. Download MaskWright for isolation. Collection policy stays this page.

Is a public author byline personal data you will not collect?

A byline on a page you are allowed to fetch is ordinary public text. Building a dossier of home addresses is not. Stay on the public page, follow terms, and do not turn a research profile into a people database.

Windows Search, OneDrive, and a contractor’s Slack are how dumps grow legs. Keep the research folder boring and logged out.

The Scraping hub is official channels, public pages, your own exports. Not stranger lists.