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The GP did not call it a "Public service", but a service that was public, and the further context around the comment made it abundantly clear they were talking

• dahart 9y ago
  I don't understand what you mean. The GP said "you cannot then police what users of that data you consider to be 'public' because it serves your business interest." Yes, they can. That sentence is explicitly describing the public expectations of a public service in the government sense. LinkedIn can police whatever they want because of their business interest, precisely because they are a private entity and not a public service in the government provision sense. Despite their offering information to unregistered site visitors, they are within their rights to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason. I did not rearrange GP's quote, and GP seemed to be conflating public access with government provision, which is why I brought up the distinction. Are you saying that you agree with GP that LinkedIn should be compelled by law to provide public access to all?
  • pm24601 9y ago
    > Yes, they can The judge just said .. no they can't. Until the judge's ruling is overturned. Your statement is incorrect. And you keep using the phrase "public service" which is not the issue at hand. A store owner can not dictate who is allowed to read or take pictures of their store window. Effectively the judge was saying that if LinkedIn offers information that does not require a login - LinkedIn can not then tell someone that they can't use the info that is publicly visible. No mention of "public service" - please stop conflating the two concepts.
    • dahart 9y ago
      > The judge just said .. no they can't. Until the judge's ruling is overturned. This was an injunction, no ruling has been made. > Effectively the judge was saying that ... This is an injunction in LinkedIn vs HiQ, the judge did not share an opinion about site visitors who aren't logged in, nor make any ruling about whether publicly visible data can be restricted or not. > A store owner can not dictate who is allowed to read or take pictures of their store window. True, from outside the store. But to make a more complete analogy to this case, a store owner can dictate what you can read or photograph while inside the store. And the store owner can legally block the view to the outside anytime she wants. > "public service" which is not the issue at hand. I just explained above, and maybe you reacted quickly without understanding what I wrote. I'm not sure why I'm getting heavy pushback on this, it is both accurate and not controversial. I reacted to @iamleppert's idea that LinkedIn can't police it's users. The fact is that they can police their users (except for HiQ until the case is over). My interpretation is that he was saying they shouldn't be allowed to police this "public" data. Do you think I misunderstood? I'm not conflating the concepts, I am distinguishing between them. It may be that one is a red herring or that I misunderstood, but on 2nd and 3rd reading it still looks to me like GP is suggesting that LinkedIn should not be allowed to restrict access to some users. If that were true it would turn LinkedIn into a public service, hence the reason why I'm talking about public services.
      • wolco 9y ago
        If the store owner tells you information you can write it down and share it. They can refuse to answer questions but they cannot take back any public data they made available. They have a right to ignore your question and put rules around who they will respond to and when. When they respond with data that cannot be copywritten (a name, address, title of past position,etc) of course someone can reuse those pieces.
        • icebraining 9y ago
          They can refuse to answer questions Which is what LinkedIn did, and what HiQ is suing them over.