Judge orders LinkedIn to stop blocking data-scraping firm - Sensationalist Headlines

[quote]A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered LinkedIn to stop blocking a startup company from scraping LinkedIn personal profiles for data. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen has sided with hiQ Labs, a San Francisco company that analyzes workforce data scraped from public profiles. LinkedIn invoked a federal anti-hacking law in telling hiQ to stop. LinkedIn also installed technical blocks to prevent hiQ from accessing otherwise publicly available information on LinkedIn users. Chen’s preliminary injunction Monday gives LinkedIn a day to remove those blocks. LinkedIn spokeswoman Nicole Leverich says “we will continue to fight to protect our members’ ability to control the information they make available on LinkedIn.” In a statement, hiQ said the company “believes that public data must remain public” and that big companies shouldn’t stifle innovation by hoarding public data.[/quote] [url=https://www.apnews.com/43de416c774b4fe8a3f5ddfe45280852/Judge-orders-LinkedIn-to-stop-blocking-data-scraping-firm]AP[/url]

[quote]In a statement, hiQ said the company “believes that public data must remain public” and that big companies shouldn’t stifle innovation by hoarding public data.[/quote] Sounds like hiQ needs to fuck right off. These people gave LinkedIn their data and signed LinkedIn's EULA. They gave no such permission to hiQ.

[QUOTE=1/4 Life;52576332]Sounds like hiQ needs to fuck right off. These people gave LinkedIn their data and signed LinkedIn's EULA. They gave no such permission to hiQ.[/QUOTE] I was going to say that it doesn't really make sense that information made public shouldn't be usable by others. But huh, now that you bring that up, I actually do see their case.

[QUOTE=Zang-Pog;52576378]What innovation are we talking about? The innovation of selling personal information to advertisers and the such?[/QUOTE] [URL]https://www.hiqlabs.com/solutions/[/URL] [URL]https://www.hiqlabs.com/who-we-are[/URL] that combined with some algorithms it seems

That data being public is not an invitation to automate nuisance calls and emails.

LinkedIn have no right to block scrapers from accessing the data when it's public. They are no better themselves either, and scrapes a lot of sites to better build your connections and potential interests. [editline]15th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=QwertySecond;52576460]That data being public is not an invitation to automate nuisance calls and emails.[/QUOTE] Except it is, you do not need to sign any EULA or other types of contract to view public data, thus you may use it however you like. If they were circumventing their EULA, or automatically created accounts to scrape data then it would be a whole other ordeal.

[QUOTE=Anderen2;52576464]LinkedIn have no right to block scrapers from accessing the data when it's public. They are no better themselves either, and scrapes a lot of sites to better build your connections and potential interests. [editline]15th August 2017[/editline] Except it is, you do not need to sign any EULA or other types of contract to view public data, thus you may use it however you like. If they were circumventing their EULA, or automatically created accounts to scrape data then it would be a whole other ordeal.[/QUOTE] Not exactly, just because something is publicly available to view doesn't mean it can be used for whatever anyone wants. Automated phone calls are a good example, people's phone numbers can be found easily. But in the US companies looking up people's numbers through public sources and then sending them calls trying to sell them shit and whatnot is usually pretty illegal. It's not that calling people to sell them stuff is illegal, but that means of data collection and application is for privacy reasons. LinkedIn is probably basing their argument around some mix of copyright law + EULA meaning that that data isn't public domain.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52576482]Not exactly, just because something is publicly available to view doesn't mean it can be used for whatever anyone wants. Automated phone calls are a good example, people's phone numbers can be found easily. But in the US companies looking up people's numbers through public sources and then sending them calls trying to sell them shit and whatnot is usually pretty illegal. It's not that calling people to sell them stuff is illegal, but that means of data collection and application is for privacy reasons. LinkedIn is probably basing their argument around some mix of copyright law + EULA meaning that that data isn't public domain.[/QUOTE] I feel the subject of scraping data in general is a grey-area. IMO public data is public, whatever it is. If it's important for either the user or the owner then it should be locked down behind either a EULA, or a login. Banning data-scrapers without specifically defining what about their actions which is illegal could cause lots of legal issues in the future. Eg. what is different between what this company does, and what Google does? Or, what is different between this, and LinkedIn's usage of members data to collect information about you, without you consenting on anything? Additional fun reading: [url]http://www.interactually.com/linkedin-creepiest-social-network/[/url] [url]http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-linkedins-people-we-may-know-feature-is-so-accurate/[/url]

[QUOTE=Anderen2;52576533]I feel the subject of scraping data in general is a grey-area. IMO public data is public, whatever it is. If it's important for either the user or the owner then it should be locked down behind either a EULA, or a login. Banning data-scrapers without specifically defining what about their actions which is illegal could cause lots of legal issues in the future. Eg. what is different between what this company does, and what Google does? Or, what is different between this, and LinkedIn's public data digging for contacts and interests?[/QUOTE] I don't use LinkedIn so I'm not entirely sure what kind of scraping they do. But I'm assuming it's stuff like looking through your facebook, google account, and whatnot edit: seems to be the case according to your links In those cases those services are quite literally designed to be utilized by others in a specific way. They provide APIs for it and say "this is what we're giving you." If you scrape google data and don't do it the way they want you to they have been known to block people. Google won't scrape your website iirc if you set up your robots.txt correctly.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52576552]I don't use LinkedIn so I'm not entirely sure what kind of scraping they do. But I'm assuming it's stuff like looking through your facebook, google account, and whatnot? In those cases those services are quite literally designed to be utilized by others in a specific way. They provide APIs for it and say "this is what we're giving you." If you scrape google data and don't do it the way they want you to they have been known to block people. Google won't scrape your website iirc if you set up your robots.txt correctly.[/QUOTE] I edited my post to clarify my point better. And yes, if you configure your robots.txt then Google won't touch it, however AFAIK it's just common courtesy, and no law against ignoring it.

For me, it's not a matter about the data if it's public or not. Anyone providing a service should be in control over access to it. As in, from a simple technical perspective there should be nothing preventing LinkedIn from blocking whoever they want from accessing their services or servers. No matter the data.

[QUOTE=Lord Fear;52576583]For me, it's not a matter about the data if it's public or not. Anyone providing a service should be in control over access to it. As in, from a simple technical perspective there should be nothing preventing LinkedIn from blocking whoever they want from accessing their services or servers. No matter the data.[/QUOTE] I totally agree on this aswell, however in this case (If I understood the case correctly) LinkedIn was the one that sued HiQ. Quote: "LinkedIn invoked a federal anti-hacking law in telling hiQ to stop." I do not agree in forcing LinkedIn to remove the blocks (Which I guess was ineffective), but I do agree that public data is indeed for all purposes public. [editline]15th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Teddybeer;52576598]So they didn't copyright the data like every other company on the planet does?[/QUOTE] I guess they cannot copyright personal data

[QUOTE=Anderen2;52576581]I edited my post to clarify my point better. And yes, if you configure your robots.txt then Google won't touch it, however AFAIK it's just common courtesy, and no law against ignoring it.[/QUOTE] I think when we get to that point it's a bit of a murky area. There are cases that have ruled against scrapers, such as a very important case for facebook in 2009 which established that it could trigger copyright law. But despite that, typically you're on your own and it's up to you to protect yourself from scraping. At least for now. It'll be interesting at least to see if LinkedIn can win.

I've seen a few of these scalping apps show up recently and honestly they're fucking terrifying. They scan all your media accounts from Facebook to Artstation and using that data they deem if you online presence makes you an "acceptible" person to work where they're hiring. It's horrible.

[QUOTE=Teddybeer;52576598]So they didn't copyright the data like every other company on the planet does?[/QUOTE] I don't think you can copyright facts.

[QUOTE=ZombieDawgs;52577069]I've seen a few of these scalping apps show up recently and honestly they're fucking terrifying. They scan all your media accounts from Facebook to Artstation and using that data they deem if you online presence makes you an "acceptible" person to work where they're hiring. It's horrible.[/QUOTE] [quote]hiQ Labs applies science to public data sources to help business leaders make better people decisions. The hiQ cloud platform is easy to implement and delivers new data, actionable insights, and impactful suggestions for engaging with employees.[/quote] They don't even pretend to do anything else. The first line of their pitch is literally "we use public data to help managers make smarter decisions about people."

LinkedIn should tell this federal judge to eat a dick, it's their site and what they do with their site is their business., particularly when it comes to the protection of customer data.

[QUOTE=GordonZombie;52577410]LinkedIn should tell this federal judge to eat a dick, it's their site and what they do with their site is their business., particularly when it comes to the protection of customer data.[/QUOTE] Because telling a judge to eat a dick is a fundamentally good idea. Everyone's selling data because its an easy, automated, sit on your ass and watch your robot rake in the cash for you way about making money. Is it right? Is it ethical? is it moral? Does this whole data scraping method matter when I turn ublock on? Or perhaps it's a natural evolution of advertising that produces targeted quantity over quality advertisements that gets rid of all the advertisement clutter we have today.

[QUOTE=Protocol7;52577384]They don't even pretend to do anything else. The first line of their pitch is literally "we use public data to help managers make smarter decisions about people."[/QUOTE] I'm not on about the court ruling I just think they're grim services.

[QUOTE=ZombieDawgs;52579599]I'm not on about the court ruling I just think they're grim services.[/QUOTE] Oh I was agreeing, just pointing out that hiQ isn't even trying to hide the fact that they scrape your public info for some pretty unethical shit.