Hi there,
I am making a app which compare products competitio’s and merchant’s.
For instance:
Merchant want to compare food products.
Program will find food website, for example https://partakefoods.com/
Then, compare price, height… all of properties.
Is that legal? Shopify allow that?
Thank you
Hi @Ncaliskan ,
I do not think it is illegal, unless you are giving false information about the competitor’s product. Just make sure you do the product research. They call this Comparative advertising.
@Ncaliskan "legal " keyword , for anything and everything related talk to a lawyer in the related field.
Do not have a habit of first seeking legal advice from random forum posters.
If you are scraping - your entire business could become contingent on how good your lawyer is in the future.
Do not follow the advice of internet headlines or blog opinions , talk to a lawyer.
If you are using legitimate apis from those third parties to get information about the products and their terms allow that data to be used that way on a shopify merchants store or in the admin, then all is good; Still get a lawyer to review terms with you .
However as for shopify’s side of things if any or all of the third party product data is coming from merchant data on shopify because those merchants have your app installed that would unethical and probably against the platforms TOS unless all merchants are explicitly informed that is what your app does. But I have no idea how your gonna pitch and get merchants to be willing to install and app that’s make’s it easy for competitors to compare against them because they give them the data through your app , we don’t live in that world.
Example:
merchant A is hosted on shopify installs your app giving you their data.
merchant B is hosted on shopify installs your app giving you their data.
Your app lets A compare their products against merchant Bs products because your app has access to the data on merchant B’s store through the api. Merchant B could do the same thing to merchant A.
If any of those merchants are not fully aware via marketing-messaging and opt-in checkbox’s and terms that other parties gets to see their data they share with you then you have a serious problem.
If in the EU you probably have a massive problem.
As it was mentioned, discuss with your lawyer when designing your app in order to ensure you follow any applicable laws in your country. For example, in the United States, the State of California held browsewrap terms/agreements to be unenforceable because the hyperlink to the terms was “sandwiched” between two links near the bottom of the third column of links in a website footer.
source:
I was wondering the same thing when designing Glass It Price Tracker