Final answer:
Web scraping involves storing requests to a static file, often requires more than just Beautiful Soup, and must consider ownership of data. It's not illegal in the UK per se but has legal and ethical implications.
Step-by-step explanation:
When it comes to the statements regarding web scraping:
- (a) It is indeed a good practice to store requests to a static file when scraping. This limits the number of requests sent to the server and avoids overwhelming it, which is seen as more polite and less likely to be blocked.
- (b) Beautiful Soup is a widely used library for web scraping, but it is not the only tool needed. Often it is used in conjunction with other libraries such as Requests or Selenium, depending on the complexity of the task.
- (c) While data on the web is accessible, it is not necessarily free of ownership. Many websites have terms and conditions that restrict how their data can be used.
- (d) Web scraping isn't outright illegal in the UK, but it can be subject to legal limitations based on copyright, contracts, and data protection laws.
- (e) Web scraping is indeed a contentious subject. The ethical implications vary depending on factors like the source of the data, the amount of data being scraped, the impact on the scraped site, and adherence to legal requirements and terms of service.