> In common law legal systems, precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts.[1][2][3] Common-law legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules, so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observance of precedent is the mechanism by which that goal is attained.

There was no principle or rule established here regarding the CFAA, thus no precedent that must be considered by other courts.

Courts generally try to restrict their rulings to the minimal needed to decide any particular case.

If the court had made a ruling, they would not make a point of qualifying all the statements about the CFAA the way they did.

The case did establish "principle[s]" that are "persuasive" for courts deciding subsequent cases. Put it this way: Say someone gets indicted for violating the CFAA by scraping a public site. You bet their attorneys will cite hiQ v. LinkedIn as persuasive precedent for dismissing the indictment. And the court, "when deciding" that case, absolutely will consider the Ninth Circuit's statement that it's "likely" that accessing "publicly available data will not constitute access without authorization under the CFAA."

Here's another point: When the Ninth Circuit decides a case, it chooses whether the decision is "published" or "unpublished." The Ninth Circuit rules expressly say that "unpublished" decisions are not precedent.

> Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3(a): "Not Precedent. Unpublished dispositions and orders of this Court are not precedent...."

Here, the Ninth Circuit chose to issue hiQ v. LinkedIn as a published case. If the Ninth Circuit wanted the case not to be precedent, it would not have done so, and easily could have made it "unpublished."