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LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

arstechnica.com

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Re: LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

#191

Post by lgas »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #144
5trokerac3 wrote: post #141

Unpopular opinion: when you make a HTTP request you're asking the server to give you information. The server has the right to say no. IMHO, LinkedIn doesn't have a right to stop scraping after the fact, but they have the right to take technical steps to stop scrapers from accessing their site.

LinkedIn takes plenty of technical precautions to block scraping. I’ve built bots that scrape them in the past, it’s surprisingly difficult as LinkedIn is very good at determining you’re a bot and blocking you. So it’s hard to argue that a service which is scraping LinkedIn is doing it without knowledge that they are going against LinkedIn’s wishes. Whether or not this is illegal is up to the courts to determine, and…

> So it’s hard to argue that a service which is scraping LinkedIn is doing it without knowledge that they are going against LinkedIn’s wishes.

As far as I can tell, no one has made that argument, so I'm not sure why you feel the need to rebut it.

I think it all pretty much boils down to this quote from the article:

> LinkedIn's position disturbs Orin Kerr, a legal scholar at George Washington University. "You can't publish to the world and then say 'no, you can't look at it,'" Kerr told Ars.

Re: LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

#192

Post by ChuckMcM »

saurik wrote: post #182
ChuckMcM wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you've characterized this accurately. When you make an HTTP request to LinkedIn you are accessing their service. There is a long history of this relationship, you plug your house into the sewer line and you connect to the sewer service. You connect to the power pole and connect to the electricity service. You connect to the telephone pole and connect to the telephone service. Every service has "terms of…

(I am not a lawyer.) As far as I understand the legal precedents involved, random terms of services for websites are not effective in this scenario as the public profiles do not require having any account or other relationship. This actually went to court, and because Zappos didn't force users to click through a terms of service to access their service, the terms of service was invalid. As for their ability to contro…

I worked at Google for four years, an independent search engine for 5 more after that, and at IBM after it acquired said search engine for 18 months after that. Everyone of those organizations spent many thousands of dollars on legal fees over just this question and reviewed tons of case law.

Every single one of them concluded that based on how the law was written and how the web worked, there is no legal way to scrape a web site without its explicit permission to do so.

That won't stop people from trying of course and it was a source of constant entertainment in the ops team at Blekko at how people tried to sneak around at scraping (it can get very creative) but; it isn't legal, you can and will get banned from all access for it, and if you use the results in another product or offering you will be found liable for damages.

Re: LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

#193

Post by freehunter »

enraged_camel wrote: post #188
freehunter wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a legal concept known as "attractive nuisance"[1]. If I have a pool and neighborhood kids come to play and someone gets hurt, it's my fault. Even if I was away from my house and never gave permission (or explicitly forbade them from swimming), if I don't have proper access controls in place, the courts say it is too tempting for the neighbors to just come over and swim. I need to put up a locking gate to kee…

Laws like that are ridiculous. You can see that by looking at how the reasoning does not expand to certain areas. For example, if a woman walks down a dark alley wearing short skirts and gets raped, it isn't her fault. I mean can you imagine if we said "well, she was just an attractive nuisance!" The judge would throw the book at you.

They're usually targeted at children who don't know better and don't have the cognitive skills to understand consequences. Usually... but not always.

Re: LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

#194

Post by ojosilva »

Shorel wrote: post #187
5trokerac3 wrote: post #141

Unpopular opinion: when you make a HTTP request you're asking the server to give you information. The server has the right to say no. IMHO, LinkedIn doesn't have a right to stop scraping after the fact, but they have the right to take technical steps to stop scrapers from accessing their site.

Legally, I think scrappers should respect robots.txt

They do have an amazingly large robots.txt in fact.

https://www.linkedin.com/robots.txt

Re: LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

#195

Post by sokoloff »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #192
saurik wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I am not a lawyer.) As far as I understand the legal precedents involved, random terms of services for websites are not effective in this scenario as the public profiles do not require having any account or other relationship. This actually went to court, and because Zappos didn't force users to click through a terms of service to access their service, the terms of service was invalid. As for their ability to contro…

I worked at Google for four years, an independent search engine for 5 more after that, and at IBM after it acquired said search engine for 18 months after that. Everyone of those organizations spent many thousands of dollars on legal fees over just this question and reviewed tons of case law. Every single one of them concluded that based on how the law was written and how the web worked, there is no legal way to scra…

> there is no legal way to scrape a web site without its explicit permission to do so.

Google scrapes several of my sites and I've never given Google explicit permission to do so.

Re: LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

#197

Post by dragonwriter »

freehunter wrote: post #51
dsacco wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty literalist, one-size fits all approach to policy. I don't think it's a good framework to use for applying ethics considerations. If I can walk near a pool, should I also be able to run? Is running anything more than faster walking? If I'm allowed to be around the pool walking with my entry ID, should I also be allowed to place my ID on a little motorized car and make it dart around the pool really fas…

The pool has the right to kick you out, same as any website. The pool cannot call the police and charge you with a felony for misusing their resources.

> The pool cannot call the police and charge you with a felony for misusing their resources.

Once they have withdrawn permission, they can call the police and you can be charged with trespass, though that's usually a misdemeanor rather than a felony.

Re: LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

#198

Post by brailsafe »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #149
OkGoDoIt wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LinkedIn takes plenty of technical precautions to block scraping. I’ve built bots that scrape them in the past, it’s surprisingly difficult as LinkedIn is very good at determining you’re a bot and blocking you. So it’s hard to argue that a service which is scraping LinkedIn is doing it without knowledge that they are going against LinkedIn’s wishes. Whether or not this is illegal is up to the courts to determine, and…

* That being said, I hate LinkedIn as a company and I fully support anyone trying to mess with them So it's fine to mess with them, even illegally, just because you don't like them? * convinces people to willingly provide personal information Convincing is not forcing, and in fact, you say "willingly" yourself. Any business convinces you to willingly give them money or other value. * sell at ridiculously high prices…

I would replace the word "convinces" with "deceives". If you deceive a person into, for example, giving them access and permission to use your personal contact list however they please, then proceed to do just that, you don't have anything to complain about.

Re: LinkedIn: It’s illegal to scrape our website without permission

#200

Post by saurik »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #192
saurik wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I am not a lawyer.) As far as I understand the legal precedents involved, random terms of services for websites are not effective in this scenario as the public profiles do not require having any account or other relationship. This actually went to court, and because Zappos didn't force users to click through a terms of service to access their service, the terms of service was invalid. As for their ability to contro…

I worked at Google for four years, an independent search engine for 5 more after that, and at IBM after it acquired said search engine for 18 months after that. Everyone of those organizations spent many thousands of dollars on legal fees over just this question and reviewed tons of case law. Every single one of them concluded that based on how the law was written and how the web worked, there is no legal way to scra…

To the extent to which that is the case, though, it isn't due to the terms of service; and that is also a case of how you are using the data for later, which is a separate question from the scraping and collection process: it is very clear to me that a search engine is operating on the legal equivalent of thin ice, particularly with details like snippets and synthesis ;P. Whether the CFAA applies (as indicated in this article) is an open question, but that just isn't quite so obvious as "you also can't connect up to the public sewer".
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