4 ms·
Can data that is supplied with an intention to be publicly accessible i.e. public domain be restricted. If the public was asked, "When you supplied your picture
by misterhtmlcss 9y ago
Can data that is supplied with an intention to be publicly accessible i.e. public domain be restricted. If the public was asked, "When you supplied your picture, your name, and then created a public URL to become fully searchable, was your intention that that information was to be restricted or was your intention that this was information you publicized about yourself to make it possible for potential employers to find you?". Answer, "Yes, it was 100% my intention to become searchable so that employers would be able to seek me out". Conversation is over.
LinkedIn creates an implied covenant with public consent (mostly) to then publish and make discoverable their professional profiles.
While LinkedIn 100% should have the right to stop others from embedding without permission since it's possible to claim the data structure and presentation is proprietary to them, this should never extend to the actual data itself, since this was willing gifted by the actual owners (Joe public) into public domain.
I think an argument could be made that LinkedIn is being burdened with a degree of data mining that affects their business and therefore should be able to charge a minimal fee e.g. an API firehose to acquire the data in bulk from providers in an raw data stream.
That seems reasonable depending on the charges associated with that offer, this would be the correct compromise, since their data structure is all that actually separates their service from say About.me or any other site of that type. All of which don't disallow scraping; as long as it doesn't present as a DOS attack (of course).
Anyway my comments are as a marketer and not a programmer or lawyer, but personally I'm very interested to see this case resolved in a manner that doesn't suit LinkedIn in the slightest.