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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

#201

Post by briffle »

ams6110 wrote: post #163
vacri wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no good reason to treat web servers differently than store fronts. LinkedIn should be able to control who accesses their web servers and how. These two statements do not agree with each other. An owner of a brick-and-mortar shop can't (legally) stand out the front and bar black people from entering, for example.

No but they can define terms of entry that apply equally to everyone. E.g. you may enter and look around. You may not take notes, pictures, or otherwise record what is here.

But this case is about (using your analogy) someone standing on the street, photographing your building. You can't tell them they can't do it. If you don't want them knowing your apples are $1.25/lb then you need to remove that sign from your shop window.

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

#202

Post by azernik »

studentrob wrote: post #196
ubernostrum wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you're basically saying to re-train every person who uses the internet to behave in a way completely different from what they're used to. If you think you can do that, by all means try. But don't be surprised when you find out that your expectations and their expectations were different, and you're the one they blame, and they outnumber you by a lot.

> The problem is you're basically saying to re-train every person who uses the internet to behave in a way completely different from what they're used to. When did we ever teach people that you can control where your data ends up on the internet? Aren't we trending towards teaching people to not even share data on "closed" services like Facebook and Gmail precisely because they are a single source for a lot of data t…

We taught people that they could control where their data ends up before the internet, because that was an accurate model of reality. I think this is a problem that we'll grow out of as more and more people grow up in the shadow of omnipresent social media.

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

#203

Post by shakna »

dahart wrote: post #102
redial wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Public means everybody can do whatever they want with it, no exceptions ( except , as with all things, by law). If you want to restrict the information, then do it, but don't make it public and then when a competitor uses it claim it wasn't public 'for them'.

Linked in never made it "public". Use of their site is and always has been licensed. https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement

For a public license to be valid, you need to be able to view the terms, to agree to them.

But the EULA says that simply by accessing the site, you agree to its terms.

To view the EULA, you must view the site.

That's just one of many problems wrong with assuming the EULA is binding.

The ruling in this case, has said it isn't, instead because some people can index and scrape (search engines), but others (startups for example) can't. Which is an anti-trust issue.

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

#204

Post by ikeboy »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #130
avip wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how this view should be interpreted: - Websites should not have ToS - Websites may have ToS, users should be able to violate it without consequences if they don't like it ( = roughly current state of affairs) - Websites may only have ToS derived from some criminal act - something else?

How about "Website ToS should only be legally enforceable if users have actively indicated acceptance of them, not simply by saying that you agree to the ToS if you read the website".

The current injunction says LinkidIn can't even refuse to serve pages if they detect a ToS violation.

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

#205

Post by gfodor »

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…

One of the big dynamics of information I feel is still woefully under-specified is the fact that information aggregation results in power. In that light, you could imagine some framework where certain uses of public information that are inherently not aggregative are somehow legally and ethically distinct from those uses which involve aggregation. I have no idea if this distinction would be relevant for the purpose of a company enforcing use of their content, but I think on the side of data use itself, it certainly is a meaningful distinction.

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

#206

Post by ikeboy »

bigtones wrote: post #6

This is just a preliminary injunction and the court has not even heard or ruled on this case. They just allowed HiQ to access the data while they wait for the scheduled court hearing to begin. The court may eventually rule very differently once they have heard all the evidence presented and weighed up existing applicable case law. The judge who issued this injunction - Edward Chen, is also the judge presiding over th…

Forcing LinkedIn to provide the data and remove any locks is pretty harsh.

Imagine I sued a bank under the theory that the locks on their vault doors are illegally preventing me from opening them. As part of the pleliminary injunction, the judge rules that the bank must remove all locks until the case is decided.

Point is, it's not just "maintain the status quo", it's "give them your data for free". IANAL but I don't think preliminary injunctions should change the status quo by intruding on what is plausibly someone's private property.

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

#207

Post by mtokunaga »

This type of decision might also impact Yelp or any others in similar businesses. Currently their API limits a top few reviews per business via their API, and also prohibits "scraping" of data in other means.

I was going to do some experiments with larger datasets from businesses in a region, but quickly found that's not possible.

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

#208

Post by devmunchies »

mtokunaga wrote: post #207

This type of decision might also impact Yelp or any others in similar businesses. Currently their API limits a top few reviews per business via their API, and also prohibits "scraping" of data in other means. I was going to do some experiments with larger datasets from businesses in a region, but quickly found that's not possible.

And Google search results as well. Search results are publicly accessible but if you try to crawl them, Google will block it.

If it becomes illegal to block crawlers, then Google is gonna get hammered with bot traffic.

It will also mean that google won't have to be the front-end to search results, and anyone can build on top of it, which could kill google ad revenue because then you could create anonymous google searches.

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

#209

Post by sowbug »

azernik wrote: post #202
studentrob wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is you're basically saying to re-train every person who uses the internet to behave in a way completely different from what they're used to. When did we ever teach people that you can control where your data ends up on the internet? Aren't we trending towards teaching people to not even share data on "closed" services like Facebook and Gmail precisely because they are a single source for a lot of data t…

We taught people that they could control where their data ends up before the internet, because that was an accurate model of reality. I think this is a problem that we'll grow out of as more and more people grow up in the shadow of omnipresent social media.

Junk mail, telemarketing, revenge porn, and gossip predate the internet. Different media, same lessons.

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

#210

Post by dheera »

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…

Every time there is a case about whether or not information is free to use in some way, it doesn't sit well with me.

As of now deep down in my heart I don't really believe in intellectual property. I do believe in respect, and in giving credit where credit is due.

But when all is said and done, I don't believe in copyrighting a number. I don't believe that it is anyone's right to dictate how bits that enter devices I own are used.

How do protect inventions and businesses, you ask? I say:

* If you have a secret you don't want to be distributed, don't share it with anyone you cannot trust. Trained models are a good example.

* Provide a service that only provides a limited amount of information per unit time. The user is free to use the information they obtained however they wish, but even a thousand users wouldn't have a way to copy your whole database in a reasonable amount of time. Google search, for example.

* Alternatively, if you are not sure you trust someone, take collateral from them. (e.g. "It is legal to share this information about me, but then it is also legal for me to share this other information about you [that you probably don't want shared]", or "If you share this information about me, you will be kicked out from the company/platform/etc.", or an Ethereum smart contract that causes you to be fined if someone else demonstrates that they got a piece of information that I shared with you.)

* Build businesses that have stronger value propositions than restricting how information is used. Network effects, physical hardware, good service and support, good use of massive amounts of back-end data that only you have, are all options.

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