Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)

Post by etxm » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

powrtoch wrote: post #38

"HiQ only takes information from public LinkedIn profiles. By definition, any member of the public has the right to access this information. Most importantly, the appeals court also upheld a lower court ruling that prohibits LinkedIn from interfering with hiQ’s web scraping of its site." Surely I'm not reading this correctly. This would seem to suggest that websites are not legally allowed to prevent bots from crawli…

Post by michaelmior » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

rohansingh wrote: post #173

andrewmutz wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if the user does not have a service account (as is the case for HiQ, it doesn't seem they were using accounts for it), then your ToS does not apply, since you've technically not entered a binding legal contract with them. Are you sure about this? I am not a lawyer, but I believe that the Terms of Service applies to all users, not just those that explicitly set up a user account. I have interpreted the LinkedIn…

> Are you sure about this? I am not a lawyer, but I believe that the Terms of Service applies to all users, not just those that explicitly set up a user account. How would that even work? If I browse to any random public page of your website, it's served to me before you've even transmitted the terms of service. How could I be bound by those terms of service when I haven't even seen them?

Post by pc86 » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #49

pc86 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't data just data ? No. At the risk of just repeating the comment you didn't understand, creative works are not "just data" - they are copyrightable works that the owner has control over who can use them, not just for profit, but for any reason with few exceptions. You don't just get to drop someone else's work product into your algorithm without their permission.

I think the fashion industry should exert their right to have their work removed from photographs.

Post by LameRubberDucky » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #40

kabacha wrote: post #11

The toxicity towards web-scraping is really what makes me lose hope in the current web. People want their data to be public and all of the benefits that comes with public data but then they want to chose who gets to see it - it's a complete and utter paradox. This precedent doesn't really mean much but is definitely step in the right direction.

There's plenty of grey here. For example, scrapers that try to check people in for flights to get better seats. Some that tried to charge for that. That creates problems, where some customers benefit at the expense of others, high load on a "locking type" piece of code, etc. Similar for ticket sales for concerts, and probably other spaces. There are also companies that provide added value by compiling and correlating…

Post by dalore » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

powrtoch wrote: post #38

"HiQ only takes information from public LinkedIn profiles. By definition, any member of the public has the right to access this information. Most importantly, the appeals court also upheld a lower court ruling that prohibits LinkedIn from interfering with hiQ’s web scraping of its site." Surely I'm not reading this correctly. This would seem to suggest that websites are not legally allowed to prevent bots from crawli…