Poetry in lockdown: hiQ to Supremes / Please leave LinkedIn scrape ruling / well enough alone Data science startup hiQ Labs has responded [PDF] to a Supreme Court petition from LinkedIn, urging justices to avoid revisiting the earlier Ninth Circuit appeal court ruling that stated web scraping doesn't contravene federal hacking legislation. Founded in 2012, hiQ Labs describes itself as a "data science company, informed …
Spot on translation.
But in LinkedIn's case the defense is even shakier. LinkedIn users post resumes in the hope that everyone in the world will see them.
One also wonders whether hiQ, if they lose in court, could purchase a LinkedIn Hiring Account ($99.95/month) and become authorized by LinkedIn.
A newspaper website gives me permission to read a few articles without paying. Anything I want to look at, as far as I can tell, but rationed. This meant that I saw a "complimentary article" about President Trump that was the opposite of complimentary. My point is they give away everything but they don't let me take everything.
I expect there are ways around the restriction, but I'm not pursuing that. At the moment I'm not subscribing either, I can insult President Trump myself and I frequently do.
To me there is a difference between publicly readable for a specific purpose (ie job seeking) and publicly usable (ie your opinion on an open forum that is not moderated).
I don't expect my data to be re-sold by a 3rd party who I didn't give specific permission to do so. Granted, the fine print of the terms you agree to when supplying data to firms such as LinkedIn pretty much guarantees it will be monetized in ways I never dreamed of.
It's a wonder GCHQ hasn't already employed you as a consultant (assuming you aren't already a GCHQ shill).
Of freaking course there are issues with the processing of publicly accessible data. It's not just a question of what data is made public, it's also very much a question of the purpose for which that data was made public.
"Users do not expect, or consent to, the exploitation of their personal information in perpetuity by third parties that the users and the website owner did not authorize and whose interests are not aligned with the interests of the owners of that personal information."
Indeed. That's why I closed my LinkedIn account. Getting bought by Borkzilla was the drop that overfloweth the cup.
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