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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

#181

Post by dahart »

pm24601 wrote: post #173
dahart wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to their view, you do agree to the contract by using their services, which includes visiting their web pages. If you don't agree, then don't use the services and don't visit their site. Or do, and argue it in court, but it's pointless to tell me you don't agree, the contract exists. They're not restricting access to the information. HiQ is scraping their site using bots, and LinkedIn doesn't like it. This i…

> According to their view, which the judge didn't agree with. So right now your argument is counterfactual and pointless.

The judge did not rule on the validity of their EULA. It was an injunction.

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

#183

Post by cvsh »

tyingq wrote: post #59
revelation wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright isn't thoughtcrime, if they aren't redistributing it to anyone with standing to sue (very likely not LinkedIn, no matter their ToS) they can process things all day.

I did not say or imply "thoughtcrime". Just noting it can be more complex. Sentiment analysis of copyrighted text passages might be claimed as being a derivitive work for example. Fair use does have limits. The standing to sue is an issue for user generated content, yes.

>Sentiment analysis of copyrighted text passages might be claimed as being a derivitive work for example.

So if a company releases a product that predicts likelihood of an employee quitting, you think you're going to have standing to sue because an analysis of a copyrighted passage you wrote comprised 0.000001% of the source material the algorithm was trained on?

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

#184

Post by ryanwaggoner »

dahart wrote: post #165
redial wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then, since what you are saying is that a contract only one part agreed to is a valid contract, By reading (or not) this comment, you (“the reader") concede all the points of this discussion. The reader also agrees that the arguments presented by HackerNews user “redial” ("me", "we", "us") are correct even in case of conflict with his or her own previously stated positions, and that he/she will amend all of his/…

+1 for the lols. You seem to be arguing against me for the existence of EULAs. Maybe you're not aware that these have been around and their validity has been debated for decades? Lots of people are super bugged by them, just like you are. I think's it's fairly lame too. I didn't write the EULA, and I don't care if it's a valid contract. But no matter what you say to me, no matter how much sarcasm you use, the fact is…

the fact is that LinkedIn's EULA says that by visiting their site, you are agreeing to their contract

So what? The whole point here is that they can say and think whatever they want, but it doesn't make any difference if the law disagrees.

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

#185

Post by ryanwaggoner »

dahart wrote: post #150
ekianjo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you dont need.to sign.on to view public profiles so you dOnt enter any agreement with linkedin as a visitor.

You can choose to see it that way if you want. LinkedIn's EULA says otherwise. I have no opinion on whether LinkedIn's EULA is enforceable or legal, I'm only sharing the facts, and the facts are that according to LinkedIn's EULA, visitors do fall under the agreement.

You seem really hung up on what their EULA says, and I'm not clear on why. The question at hand is whether their EULA applies, so whatever is in it is 100% irrelevant to that question, right?

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

#186

Post by DannyBee »

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #107
DannyBee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is just a preliminary injunction and the court has not even heard or ruled on this case" This is not quite right. One of the requirements to get a PI is a likelihood of success on the merits ;)

The order discusses how less is required of the merits (need only raise serious questions) if the consequences are dire (going out of business), then discusses how they depend entirely on LinkedIn. It's also possible that the judge is giving them affordance before killing their business to prevent appeals.

FWIW: That is actually fairly rare. Usually the answer is "well, the creditors can continue the lawsuit if they think it is valuable"

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

#187

Post by ryanwaggoner »

rayiner wrote: post #154
solomatov wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There're limitations to this. For example, you can take a look of other people's property from publicly accessible place.

Sure, you can do things that don't constitute trespass. But unlike what's inside a store front, you can't observe the contents of a web server without interacting with it (trespassing).

This seems really annoyingly tied to the technology of the web. If the public, non-authenticated web was built on a broadcast mechanism (like radio) instead of a request-response mechanism like HTTP, then this argument wouldn't apply. Hopefully the court considers whether it actually behaves more like the former than the latter.

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

#188

Post by DannyBee »

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.

Without having downloaded the order from pacer, if i had to guess, i don't think a click wrap would change anything.

The free speech argument is certainly a dud here. The argument that has likely had any weight at all would be the antitrust/unfair competition one.

A click wrap will not change that.

It's almost certainly about linkedin's repeated claims about how they don't own these, they are public info, and they want to make them public, and now is turning around and saying "just kidding!", and trying to put someone out of business who depended on that, all so they can start their own analytics product.

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

#189

Post by DannyBee »

jitix wrote: post #170
iamleppert wrote: post #51

I fully support this decision. If you're offering a service that is public, with the intent to your users that such information will be available publicly, you cannot then police what users of that data you consider to be "public" because it serves your business interest. LinkedIn, of course, wants to get all the benefit of the public Internet with providing as little as they can. This, coming from someone who used t…

But isn't the data stored on LinkedIn's servers technically owned by LinkedIn? I support this decision in the interest of innovation but hiQ is using data that is physically on LinkedIn's systems and which has been legally acquired by LinkedIn from its users. The term "public data" is a very broad definition and needs to be well defined.

In this case, it's a moot discussion. LinkedIn publicly disclaims ownership of the data.

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

#190

Post by DannyBee »

smokeyj wrote: post #112
dahart wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boo. OP said it's a service offered to the public. Don't need to move the goal post. Nothing moved. OP also said, in the same sentence, "you cannot then police what users of that data you consider to be 'public' because it serves your business interest." Yes, they can. It is clear from context that OP was suggesting that LinkedIn should be held to the legal standards of a "Public Service" in the government entity s…

Just like you can't fart in public and charge bystanders for the scent - you can't broadcast facts into the public and expect people not to recall them. I mean, you can. But good luck with that!

"Just like you can't fart in public and charge bystanders for the scent - you can't broadcast facts into the public and expect people not to recall them. I mean, you can. But good luck with that! "

Do you also believe you can take the satellite tv signals beamed at your house and decrypt them? After all, they broadcasted them as widely as they possibly could! If they didn't want you to watch them, they shouldn't have sent it to you!

(This is a great in-theory argument that simply does not mesh well with our law in reality)

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