'Scrapers' Dig Deep for Data on Web
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20220120134414im_/https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-AX648_Scrape_G_20101011213148.jpg)
Bilal Ahmed wrote about his health on a site that was scraped.
Andrew Quilty for The Wall Street Journal.At 1 a.m. on May 7, the website PatientsLikeMe.com noticed suspicious activity on its "Mood" discussion board. There, people exchange highly personal stories about their emotional disorders, ranging from bipolar disease to a desire to cut themselves.
It was a break-in. A new member of the site, using sophisticated software, was "scraping," or copying, every single message off PatientsLikeMe's private online forums.
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