4 ms·
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 fiel
by ynniv 9y ago
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.
- UncleEntity 9y agoThe difference is Linkedin knows they're scraping the site, asked them to stop and is now trying to force them to stop through the courts (in a really bad way).
- ynniv 9y agoGoogle, Bing, etc are also scraping their site, and I see no cease and desist order there. Make Googlebot authenticate itself, or admit the data is publicly accessible.
- UncleEntity 9y agoThe Whataburger I went to for breakfast this morning gives some homeless people free coffee and asks others to leave...
- ynniv 9y agoAnd when hiQ shows up looking homeless and accepts the gift of coffee, they are committing a crime?
- UncleEntity 9y agoNo, but when they ask them to leave and they still take a coffee cup they are. But that's not the point, the point is it's possible to give something for free and also refuse to give it to everyone under any circumstance. They didn't give me a free cup of coffee and someone could reasonably mistake me for a homeless person based on my (lack of) fashion sense but that doesn't mean I could just reach over the counter and grab a cup because I saw them give one to somebody else when I walked through the door.
- ynniv 9y agoWhen a server sends you a response you aren't taking something, you are being given something. If the server thought you shouldn't have it, it wouldn't give it to you. How can you say that hiQ isn't allowed to have this, but everyone else is allowed to take as much as they like? All that will happen is hiQ will create a string of shell companies that accesses LinkedIn as their proxies, and you will be wasting the court's time. Step zero is to establish that no one can have access unless authorized, and LinkedIn refuses to do this.
- UncleEntity 9y ago> When a server sends you a response you aren't taking something, you are being given something. If the server thought you shouldn't have it, it wouldn't give it to you. That's not even a rational argument, ask some hacker sitting in prison how well that one went over. > How can you say that hiQ isn't allowed to have this, but everyone else is allowed to take as much as they like? Umm, private property? Terms of service? Take your pick... > All that will happen is hiQ will create a string of shell companies that accesses LinkedIn as their proxies, and you will be wasting the court's time. Step zero is to establish that no one can have access unless authorized, and LinkedIn refuses to do this. hiQ isn't fighting the validity of giving access to some people while denying them access to the very same data they are fighting a misapplication of a totally unrelated law (because it's the right thing to do). This whole thing isn't about denying them access but "hiQ challenged LinkedIn’s attempt to use the CFAA as a tool to enforce its terms of use in court."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]