Are they arguing that it's a crime , or that it's a tort ?
I believe the latter (though IANAL)
Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
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Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#22> LinkedIn argues that imposing criminal liability for automated access of publicly available LinkedIn data would protect the privacy interests of LinkedIn users who decide to publish their information publicly, but that’s just not true Protect them from what, your unlocked front door ? [0][1] [0] "Hackers selling 117 million LinkedIn passwords" http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/19/technology/linkedin-hack/ind... [1] http…
> I'd also note that these companies are barely (if ever) held liable for life-compromising hacks on their platforms. You do know it is impossible to stop all cyber attacks? Its always a matter of when, not if. Zero day attacks are developed everyday with not even the best funded cyber security systems able to thwart them. The geniuses are on the offensive side, if they want in, they will get in.
It's not impossible to stop most though. and Hacks like sony, equifax, linkedin and many others are the result of what should be criminal negligence. I.e. not encrypting sensitive personally-identifiable information.
instead of investing in securing their customer data these companies pad their bottom line. so yes, they should be held accountable for failing to follow basic industry-standard data protection practices.
Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is discriminating against robots unfair? There are valid reasons (for instance, robots take a lot of resources to serve and don't lead to revenue).
Just because it's a robot doesn't mean that it takes more resources to load a page. A robot that loads 1000x more pages than a normal user, sure. But then rate-limit everyone rather than blocking specifically bots. And that bots don't lead to revenue depends on why the bot is navigating on your page no? If it's some indexer that links back to your website and it's a popular index, then you'll maybe end up with more r…
Accepting robots + humans takes more resources than only accepting humans.
Your arguments about revenue are website-dependant and it's the website owner who is in the best position to decide whether robots are good for them or not (and plenty of sites don't ban bots in their robots.txt). In this case, the company that ran the bots is directly competing with Linkedin's products that sell aggregated data to employers and such, and linkedin clearly decided it's not going to lead to more revenue for them.
Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#24There is a difference between public property and private property that is made available to the public. Just because the cafe on the corner has its door open and lets you stroll in off the street doesn't mean that the property owner doesn't retain the right to exclude people. And if the property owner revokes your permission, then going onto the property again can be a crime (trespass).[1]
Servers are no different. The Internet isn't an abstraction--it's just pieces of private property connected together (servers, routers, switches). When you make an HTTP request, you're accessing a piece of private property. The owner of that property has every right to decide not to let you do so.
Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#25How does a website put reasonable limits on access?
I'm not saying what Linkedin is trying to do is right but it seems to me there needs to be a way to say "Dude, that's not cool." A regular B&M store can refuse service to disruptive people and trespass people who don't comply, why not servers?
--edit--
Pretty much what rayiner is saying, they posted while I was typing.
Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#26So why didn't hiQ just operate from some jurisdiction where scraping is legal? And use VPN services to prevent blocking. I mean, the Internet is global. So why should US laws matter everywhere?
Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#27[deleted]
Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#28There is a difference between public property and private property that is made available to the public. Just because the cafe on the corner has its door open and lets you stroll in off the street doesn't mean that the property owner doesn't retain the right to exclude people. And if the property owner revokes your permission, then going onto the property again can be a crime (trespass).[1] Servers are no different.…
That's not a great analogy. The store owner can't just get your arrested/charged with a crime if they don't tell you that you aren't allowed first. Http lacks such a human mechanism. The closest thing I can think of in the standard is the response code. So your server replying 200 OK should implicitly be considered permission to access that resource legally until it stops replying with that code.
Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#29There is a difference between public property and private property that is made available to the public. Just because the cafe on the corner has its door open and lets you stroll in off the street doesn't mean that the property owner doesn't retain the right to exclude people. And if the property owner revokes your permission, then going onto the property again can be a crime (trespass).[1] Servers are no different.…
Trespass is not illegal until the owner informs you that you are not wanted. Private information that has accidentally been made public is like an unmarked field. It may be private, it may be public, but until the owner takes specific action it is not illegal to use the field. If the owner decides to take action, that action cannot be retroactively applied, even if there is a record of who used the field.
Regardless, this is not analogous. If LinkedIn is making information public, then they cannot simultaneously say that this information is private for a specific use and expect the courts to intervene.
Re: Accessing Publicly Available Information on the Internet Is Not a Crime
#30There is a difference between public property and private property that is made available to the public. Just because the cafe on the corner has its door open and lets you stroll in off the street doesn't mean that the property owner doesn't retain the right to exclude people. And if the property owner revokes your permission, then going onto the property again can be a crime (trespass).[1] Servers are no different.…
Sure, but if you're never told to leave the coffee shop or no action is taken to prevent you from entering again, say being told your banned, and you continue to walk in and use the coffee shop with no one saying anything, has your permission to enter really been revoked, even if the owner thinks, and only thinks, it has been?