edwinhu/bright-data

Contents

• Cost Enforcement
• Auth
• What Bright Data Offers
• Web Archive API (verified)
• Dataset Marketplace API
• Pricing Model
• FINRA BrokerCheck & SEC IAPD Coverage
• Additional Resources

Cost Enforcement

<EXTREMELY-IMPORTANT> Bright Data bills real money. Two API actions are FREE, the rest cost.

• FREE: GET /datasets/list; POST /webarchive/search + polling GET /webarchive/search/<id> (returns counts + dump_cost_usd WITHOUT charging).
• PAID: POST /webarchive/dump (~$0.001/page), Web Unlocker requests (~$1.5–3 per 1k successes), dataset record purchases/triggers (per-record).

NEVER call /webarchive/dump, trigger a dataset collection, or create/use a Web Unlocker zone unless the user has explicitly approved the spend for THAT operation. Always run a free search first to get the exact dump_cost_usd and show it to the user before any dump.

The default read-only token (BRIGHTDATA_API_TOKEN) can list datasets and run archive searches but CANNOT create zones. Do not attempt zone creation with it. </EXTREMELY-IMPORTANT>

Auth

All endpoints use a Bearer token. NEVER hardcode it. Read from env or a gitignored key file:

# preferred: env var
export BRIGHTDATA_API_TOKEN=...        # set in shell profile / .env (gitignored)
# fallback used during this project:
TOKEN=$(cat ~/projects/batm/scratch/brd_token.txt)   # gitignored key file

import os
TOKEN = os.environ.get("BRIGHTDATA_API_TOKEN") or open(os.path.expanduser("~/.config/brightdata/token")).read().strip()
HEADERS = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {TOKEN}", "Content-Type": "application/json"}

What Bright Data Offers

Three relevant products:

1. Dataset marketplace — ~1,576 pre-collected datasets (GET /datasets/list). Heavily social/company/people (LinkedIn 115M people, Instagram 620M, Crunchbase 2.3M, Glassdoor, etc.). No government/regulatory/licensing products except a "US lawyers directory" (1.4M). See references/datasets-catalog.md.
2. Web Archive — Bright Data's own crawl archive (a Wayback-like corpus). Searchable for free by domain/URL/date; dumps cost ~$0.001/page. This is where the FINRA/SEC coverage lives. See references/webarchive-api.md.
3. Web Unlocker / scraping zones — on-demand unblocked fetch of live pages (anti-bot bypass). Requires a writable token to create zones. ~$1.5–3 per 1k successful requests.

Web Archive API (verified)

Base: https://api.brightdata.com/webarchive. Async — search returns a search_id, poll until status == "done".

# 1. Launch a FREE search (returns {"search_id": "..."})
curl -s -X POST https://api.brightdata.com/webarchive/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"filters":{"min_date":"2015-01-01","max_date":"2026-06-10","domain_whitelist":["brokercheck.finra.org"]}}'

# 2. Poll (FREE) — when done returns files_count, dump_cost_usd, estimate_batch_count
curl -s https://api.brightdata.com/webarchive/search/<search_id> \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

Filters (body {"filters":{...}}):

• Required: either max_age OR min_date+max_date (YYYY-MM-DD).
• domain_whitelist — exact host match, array.
• domain_like_whitelist — SQL LIKE, e.g. ["%finra%"].
• url_like_whitelist — SQL LIKE on full URL (use to scope a cheap subset dump).
• unique_url (bool) — count/dump distinct URLs only (dedupes repeat snapshots).

Searches can take 9+ minutes. Launch many in parallel, then poll every ~20s. See references/webarchive-api.md for a working parallel-poll Python harness.

dump_cost_usd ≈ files_count / 1000 confirms the ~$0.001/page dump price.

Dataset Marketplace API

curl -s https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/list -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"
# -> [{"id":"gd_...","name":"...","size":<approx record count>}, ...]

size is approximate record count. Pulling records (snapshot/trigger) is a separate paid step — not covered by the read-only token. See references/datasets-catalog.md for the categorized highlights.

Pricing Model

| Action | Cost | Notes | |---|---|---| | GET /datasets/list | free | metadata only | | POST /webarchive/search + poll | free | returns count + dump_cost_usd | | POST /webarchive/dump | ~$0.001 / page | the paid step; confirm cost first | | Web Unlocker request | ~$1.5–3 / 1k successes | needs writable token + zone | | Dataset records | per-record | snapshot/trigger; varies by dataset |

FINRA BrokerCheck & SEC IAPD Coverage

Verified 2026-06-10 via free Web Archive searches. Bright Data IS a viable source for current BrokerCheck/IAPD data — via the Web Archive, not the marketplace.

• No FINRA/broker/adviser/IAPD/RIA dataset exists in the marketplace.
• Web Archive has a massive recent crawl:
  • brokercheck.finra.org — 1,434,501 snapshots / 714,614 distinct URLs (~$715 to dump distinct).
  • adviserinfo.sec.gov — 1,635,389 snapshots / 664,043 distinct URLs (~$664 to dump distinct).
  • api.brokercheck.finra.org and reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov = 0 (only the HTML profile pages were captured, not the JSON API or PDF reports).
• Temporal: zero pre-2024; essentially all 2025 (~1.0–1.2M each) + 2026 (~235k–633k). It's a current cross-section + start of a 2025→2026 panel, NOT a deep historical time series.

Full numbers, year brackets, and verdict in references/finra-sec-coverage.md. For deep disclosure history (pre-2024), use FINRA/SEC bulk downloads or WRDS instead (see the wrds skill, Form ADV).

Additional Resources

Reference Files

• references/webarchive-api.md — full Web Archive API reference, filters, the parallel-poll Python harness, url_like_whitelist subset-dump pattern, cost arithmetic.
• references/datasets-catalog.md — categorized highlights of the 1,576-dataset marketplace (company/people/finance/professional), with ids and sizes; how to re-fetch the catalog.
• references/finra-sec-coverage.md — verified FINRA BrokerCheck + SEC IAPD coverage: totals, distinct, year-by-year temporal spread, dump costs, and the viability verdict.