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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

#141

Post by lonelappde »

perl4ever wrote: post #51
pixelmonkey wrote: post #15

The summary here is that LinkedIn tried to argue that it could prevent scraping of public LinkedIn profile data under their ToS, but the courts have ruled that if data is public and provided by users, it can be scraped/crawled, that is, it isn’t LinkedIn property. This is generally a positive outcome for people/companies turning web text and HTML into structured data, e.g. tools like Puppeteer and Scrapy can be used…

"it can be scraped/crawled, that is, it isn’t LinkedIn property" I thought it was pretty established that putting something on a website didn't eliminate your copyright. Has that changed now? To me, it seems like common sense would be that if you make a public website, you are implicitly permitting some copies, but surely it's not all or nothing?

The simple answer is that HN is full of people pretending to be lawyers, whose legal education is from University of Posterior, so don't look her for good information about law.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#142

Post by lonelappde »

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…

What gives you a rightful claim to information that I gave to someone else, if neither I nor they consent?

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#143

Post by jayalpha »

komali2 wrote: post #88
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!)

Some kid was charged for that but in my opinion it was stupid. URL to me means part of the UX. If you search on Google using a query parameter directly instead of entering the query in their search box, should that count as wrongful use?

No, it should not. But what if you try some SQL injection to do something nasty?

The modern law system distinguishes between result and intent.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#144

Post by 55555 »

crazygringo wrote: post #16

Question: This seems to mean LinkedIn can't sue to prevent scraping. I assume it's still legal for them to implement technological anti-scraping measures? So the two companies can play cat-and-mouse if they wish with rate-limiting, IP addresses, etc...

> This seems to mean LinkedIn can't sue to prevent scraping.

Zillow and similar companies have shut down numerous startups which relied on scraping their data.

How is this different?

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#145

Post by paxys »

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.

IMO if you set up a profile on LinkedIn there's a pretty clear expectation that your bosses will be able to see it.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#146

Post by bdowling »

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…

> If the venue is not correct, the facts of the case are not evaluated.

More precisely, the facts of the case are not evaluated by that court. Usually the case will be transferred to a different venue (i.e., federal court in a different district) or dismissed and refiled in a different forum (e.g., state court instead of federal court).

In Mr. Auernheimer's case, had he been successful in his improper venue motion, he probably would have faced prosecution in either his home district or the district where the AT&T servers were located. The result of that trial might have been the same, but there wouldn't have been a vacatur.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#147

Post by paxys »

phs318u wrote: post #124

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 authorise…

The difference isn't as clear as you are making it out to be.

If you have a public LinkedIn profile, should an employer be able to look at it without your explicit consent and reach out to you for job opportunities (or disqualify you from one)?

Should the employer be able to pay someone else (say a recruiting agency) to look at LinkedIn profiles on their behalf?

Should the recruiting agency be able to use automated tools (which scrape public profiles) that make things easier for them?

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#148

Post by paxys »

55555 wrote: post #144
crazygringo wrote: post #16

Question: This seems to mean LinkedIn can't sue to prevent scraping. I assume it's still legal for them to implement technological anti-scraping measures? So the two companies can play cat-and-mouse if they wish with rate-limiting, IP addresses, etc...

> This seems to mean LinkedIn can't sue to prevent scraping. Zillow and similar companies have shut down numerous startups which relied on scraping their data. How is this different?

LinkedIn data is provided freely by its users. MLS, on the other hand (which Zillow and all other such sites/agents get their data from), is a private database.

Re: LinkedIn loses appeal over access to user profiles

#149

Post by Domenic_S »

lr4444lr wrote: post #46

What cracks me up about this is how these massive companies go to such lengths to call themselves mere platforms in order to avoid liability for content, and then when someone actually takes the content in this case they cry, "Foul! That's ours !" Can't have it both ways.

Who's responsible for privacy then? That's another situation where you can't have it both ways - can't tell the platform they don't own the data and simultaneously hold them to GDPR.
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