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LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

reuters.com

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Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#121

Post by TeMPOraL »

psv1 wrote: post #5
echelon wrote: post #2

This is fantastic. I would like to see wider legislation allowing scraping of IMDB, Genius, Reddit, Facebook, and Google made legal. These services receive free input from users. The data should remain free. Edit (sort of off topic): There's still value in the building and providing services at scale, but this lowers the barrier to cross the moat for small players. The first step is data liberation. Then we can work…

Another side of this is that the entity doing the scraping is more often than not another company. Which means that if your proposal is implemented, a user can voluntarily give their personal data to Google/Reddit/Facebook etc but that company then has to make the user's personal data available to another company.

This is a problem because you're talking personal data, not because of scrapping. Personal / personally identifiable data is special and special protections apply to it. But regular data would fare just fine under GP's proposal.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#122

Post by TeMPOraL »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
perspective1 wrote: post #4

I'm torn. On the one hand, scraping helps break down walled gardens. On the other, we're talking about personal details being used in novel ways that no LinkedIn user probably understands. I doubt any LinkedIn user writes their profile expecting HiQ to scrape it, assign a "flight risk" score and alert your bosses.

Doing so in Europe is a clear GDPR violation. I think that's a reasonable balance - you can scrape data, but not personal data without consent of the scraped person.

I'd say it's not only reasonable, it's also "carving nature at its joints". The reason scrapping personal data is problematic is because it's personal data, not because it's being scrapped - so protection should be applied from the direction of personal data regulations.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#123

Post by fragmede »

rebuilder wrote: post #86
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure "isn't LinkedIn property" is accurate here. They still retain ownership and control of redistribution just like any other IP. This is more of a philosophical question about whether "viewing" itself is a violation of their ownership rights and really about the definitions of "viewing" and "public" in the context of the internet. Seems like they've simply determined that viewing any freely accessible URL is "p…

Maybe it's more accurate to say "any publicly linked URL"? IIRC, charges have been successfully brought against people for e.g. iterating through user identifiers in URLs to gain access to other users' data. (Do correct me if I'm wrong on that count!)

Andrew Auernheimer, more commonly known as weev, got all of AT&T's ipad users' email addresses at that time, by enumerating all the possible sim-card IDs, against a public facing ATT website. He was charged and convicted the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and sentenced to 41 months in federal prison that. His sentence was vacated after 13 months due to a technicality of the venue; that judge did not address the substantive question on the legality of the site access.

Weev may be an odious person, but everyone has rights in a court of law, even white supremacists.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#124

Post by phs318u »

I’m a very active user of LinkedIn, effectively cultivating my “professional brand” on it. I’ve been contracting for years and use my network to find gigs. While I don’t have an issue with the business that HiQ are in (informing businesses of employee flight risk), I do believe there’s a qualitative difference between data that I publish for consumption by human eyeballs for free (a use of my data that I’ve authorised), and someone harvesting such data and en-mass for commercial purposes that I have not authorised. HiQ have not asked for my permission to use my data, they have not made any commitments about how they will use and not use my data. Given that they have access to my contact details (even via LI itself), they are capable of contacting me to request permission to use my data.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#125

Post by dwaltrip »

OrgNet wrote: post #25
tdhoot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only for personal and non-commercial use, which is probably not what startups need.

process it on your personal computer and use the output in your startup

That intermediate step doesn't get around the license.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#126

Post by vesche »

xupybd wrote: post #120

After finding this https://github.com/Greenwolf/social_mapper , I strongly recommend against having a profile photo on linkedin. It has caused me to be far more careful about my presence on the internet. In the post privacy age I don't want my personal opinions to come back and haunt me. I grow as a person but the internet remembers all. If I make a dumb mistake and it's published online that's not a problem for me i…

You can make it so your picture on LinkedIn is only viewable by people who are connected with you. I do agree that people should be cautious about what they post/share online however.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#127

Post by bdowling »

nordsieck wrote: post #77
lucb1e wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about the copyright on the items that people post, i.e. creative works, right? But what if LinkedIn collects facts (where you work, your age, etc.), wouldn't that be covered by sui generis property right (better known as database copyright)? Does this judgement say anything about that, i.e. whether it matters that users contributed the facts in their collection (so I'm not talking about posts, descriptions, e…

IANAL > But what if LinkedIn collects facts (where you work, your age, etc.), wouldn't that be covered by sui generis property right (better known as database copyright)? I don't think so. > Under the Copyright Act, a compilation is defined as a "collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship."…

LinkedIn may be the author of the compilation because they curate the database by removing fake profiles and encouraging users to complete their profiles. Also, the graph of connections between profiles may constitute a non-trivial organization method which takes the database out of the trivially-organized databases which were held uncopyrightable in the past. (e.g., Feist v. Rural[0])

In any case, this decision was mostly about upholding the lower court's granting of an order preventing LinkedIn from blocking hiQ's scrapers for the duration of the lawsuit. HiQ could still lose on the copyright questions or other issues.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R....

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#128

Post by OldHand2018 »

fragmede wrote: post #123
rebuilder wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's more accurate to say "any publicly linked URL"? IIRC, charges have been successfully brought against people for e.g. iterating through user identifiers in URLs to gain access to other users' data. (Do correct me if I'm wrong on that count!)

Andrew Auernheimer, more commonly known as weev, got all of AT&T's ipad users' email addresses at that time, by enumerating all the possible sim-card IDs, against a public facing ATT website. He was charged and convicted the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and sentenced to 41 months in federal prison that. His sentence was vacated after 13 months due to a technicality of the venue; that judge did not address the…

> His sentence was vacated after 13 months due to a technicality of the venue; that judge did not address the substantive question on the legality of the site access

So the way the American legal system works is:

  if(venue == correct && facts == bad) {
    guilty();
  } else {
    not_guilty();
  }
If the venue is not correct, the facts of the case are not evaluated. If you go read some lawsuits, you'll see that the first page or two is an argument about why the judge reading it is the correct judge to read it.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#129

Post by x220 »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #128
fragmede wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Andrew Auernheimer, more commonly known as weev, got all of AT&T's ipad users' email addresses at that time, by enumerating all the possible sim-card IDs, against a public facing ATT website. He was charged and convicted the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), and sentenced to 41 months in federal prison that. His sentence was vacated after 13 months due to a technicality of the venue; that judge did not address the…

> His sentence was vacated after 13 months due to a technicality of the venue; that judge did not address the substantive question on the legality of the site access So the way the American legal system works is: if(venue == correct && facts == bad) { guilty(); } else { not_guilty(); } If the venue is not correct, the facts of the case are not evaluated. If you go read some lawsuits, you'll see that the first page or…

Generally, that is the way it works, but it is foolish to try and understand the legal system like it's software. If the venue is incorrect, the judge may more or less tell them to get lost. That's not the same as "not guilty". A lot of rules are adhered to to make sure that courts don't get gummed up with meaningless cases and to make sure that judges with the appropriate authority handle the appropriate cases.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#130

Post by diminoten »

polygot wrote: post #19
echelon wrote: post #2

This is fantastic. I would like to see wider legislation allowing scraping of IMDB, Genius, Reddit, Facebook, and Google made legal. These services receive free input from users. The data should remain free. Edit (sort of off topic): There's still value in the building and providing services at scale, but this lowers the barrier to cross the moat for small players. The first step is data liberation. Then we can work…

If you add .json to the end of a Reddit URL, it will return JSON data. For example: https://www.reddit.com/r/ubuntu.json . It also works with comment threads and posts.

Yeah no need to scrape Reddit, their content is accessible via their API.
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