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U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#11

Post by devrandomguy »

DanBlake wrote: post #2

This seems very at-odds with previous rulings (specifically, relating to craigslists many past dealings). Strikes me as being very unlikely to stand up to appeal. Also, linkedin will likely modify their websites behavior (make you click to agree before you view a profile) which would create a binding 'click wrap' stopping companies from scraping them.

That click wrap contract is kind of an interesting thing on it's own, for those of us who only enable JS when absolutely necessary. If I never see the agreement, and I am not specifically avoiding it, does it still apply to me?

Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#12

Post by danschumann »

charlesdm wrote: post #7

"U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction request brought by hiQ Labs, and ordered LinkedIn to remove within 24 hours any technology preventing hiQ from accessing public profiles." Interesting ruling

I would hope there is a special consideration for any anti-ddos technology they have. It would be hard to differentiate between a ddos'er and a scraper. Rate limiting for ddos attacks might affect a scraper, then the question ( that linkedin is asking ), is how low can we limit them without looking like we're blocking them. I have a feeling this isn't over!

Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#13

Post by jlgaddis »

DanBlake wrote: post #2

This seems very at-odds with previous rulings (specifically, relating to craigslists many past dealings). Strikes me as being very unlikely to stand up to appeal. Also, linkedin will likely modify their websites behavior (make you click to agree before you view a profile) which would create a binding 'click wrap' stopping companies from scraping them.

Appeal? The case hasn't even been heard yet. This was a preliminary injunction; it's far from over!

Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#14

Post by jlgaddis »

devrandomguy wrote: post #11
DanBlake wrote: post #2

This seems very at-odds with previous rulings (specifically, relating to craigslists many past dealings). Strikes me as being very unlikely to stand up to appeal. Also, linkedin will likely modify their websites behavior (make you click to agree before you view a profile) which would create a binding 'click wrap' stopping companies from scraping them.

That click wrap contract is kind of an interesting thing on it's own, for those of us who only enable JS when absolutely necessary. If I never see the agreement, and I am not specifically avoiding it, does it still apply to me?

Did you click a button saying you agreed to it?

Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#15

Post by aneutron »

devrandomguy wrote: post #11
DanBlake wrote: post #2

This seems very at-odds with previous rulings (specifically, relating to craigslists many past dealings). Strikes me as being very unlikely to stand up to appeal. Also, linkedin will likely modify their websites behavior (make you click to agree before you view a profile) which would create a binding 'click wrap' stopping companies from scraping them.

That click wrap contract is kind of an interesting thing on it's own, for those of us who only enable JS when absolutely necessary. If I never see the agreement, and I am not specifically avoiding it, does it still apply to me?

Make the profile loadable via XHR and problem solved. For example.(Which I bet is already the case)

Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#16

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

dwynings wrote: post #9
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #4

Does anyone know where to view this ruling? I'm curious how it passes free-association muster: you're not allowed to discriminate on particular tasks, but there's no reason you can't discriminate based on eg, behavior or user-agent or IP address. It seems very strange to me that the judge would order MS to associate against their will prior to hearing the arguments.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/2017_0814_h...

Wow, that sign analogy is really faulty.

Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#18

Post by 0xCMP »

danschumann wrote: post #12
charlesdm wrote: post #7

"U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction request brought by hiQ Labs, and ordered LinkedIn to remove within 24 hours any technology preventing hiQ from accessing public profiles." Interesting ruling

I would hope there is a special consideration for any anti-ddos technology they have. It would be hard to differentiate between a ddos'er and a scraper. Rate limiting for ddos attacks might affect a scraper, then the question ( that linkedin is asking ), is how low can we limit them without looking like we're blocking them. I have a feeling this isn't over!

I wonder if this isn't such a big deal since it's not like they're gonna verify beyond "can they scrape now?"

As long as that is true then they will likely not run in to issues. Other issues are not for blocking them and case can be made that it's a separate issue. Defending against common internet attacks is an easy case to make to a Judge. He can't be expect LinkedIn, in this case, to kill their service so someone can scrape.

Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#19

Post by bkanber »

DanBlake wrote: post #2

This seems very at-odds with previous rulings (specifically, relating to craigslists many past dealings). Strikes me as being very unlikely to stand up to appeal. Also, linkedin will likely modify their websites behavior (make you click to agree before you view a profile) which would create a binding 'click wrap' stopping companies from scraping them.

It's just a preliminary injunction used to maintain the status quo (ie, allowing scrapers) while the case is heard. A preliminary injunction is basically "ok everyone stop what you're doing, maintain business as usual until the court rules."

Re: U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data

#20

Post by opaque »

Does anyone know how they do this scraping from a technical standpoint. The articles allude to it being the same as data Google/Bing spiders, which can clearly access more data that average internet IP for making their result summaries. I had assumed big sites whitelisted specific crawler IP ranges or User-Agents for the search giants. Do they somehow spoof this?
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