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The repo says "A look at how LinkedIn spies on its users" I'm not convinced this is LinkedIn spying on users... rather, it's them protecting its users from the
by gkoberger 8y ago
The repo says "A look at how LinkedIn spies on its users"
I'm not convinced this is LinkedIn spying on users... rather, it's them protecting its users from the spammy people using these extensions. There's not a single extensions on that list that doesn't result in someone getting an unsolicited email.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gkoberger 8y agoHere's the full list; they're all spammy recruiting/sales extensions (nothing legit like uBlock or LastPass): daxtra SalesloftProspector SalesLoftCadence discoverly Ecquire Ebstabullhorn EbstaSalesforce ProspectHive talentbin Entelo Nimble amazinghiring colabo extension StepWells(colabo) found.ly datananas Linkedin-Hubspot Connector dux-soup(fixed) data Scraper aevy Lusha Lead Generator Candidate.ai Email Hunter Prospectify iMacros Prophet Leadiq HirEtuaL Contact Out Prospect.io saleslift.io Skrapp Slik CleverStaff Linked Helper Get Email Sourcehub Salestools SellHack Sourcebreaker turboHiring LinMailPro LinMailNavigator Leonard for Linkedin LinkeLead Loxo Social import Jlenty Social2Sugar Emply Linkedroid eLink Pro LinkMatch for zoho CrM LinkMatch for zoho recruit inkMatch for CatS LinkMatch for PCrecruiter LinkMatch for Pipedrive LinkMatch for Greenhouse Snapaddy Grabber ramper Linklead.io alore.io Hr-Skyen SeekOut Leadkedin icebreaker Spider for Linkedin recruiterNerd Crelate EyeMail Sales Lead Multiplier Email Finder Linkedin assistant Lily auto Connect tools Lily adapt Prospector Leadconnect Linkedbot People.camp instant data Scraper LinkMe tool adorito gay2sms Lusha (FireFox Extension) LinkedPro LeadGibbon Socialbff And here's the code you can run yourself: https://pastebin.com/Ux684VtL https://pastebin.com/Ux684VtL
- Buge 8y agoiMacros is a legit extension. But yeah, I guess there are recruiters using it to spam people.
- eastendguy 8y agoAgree. iMacros is a completely fine macro recorder. Similar extensions like Kantu and Selenium IDE are not in the list.
- disiplus 8y agowell iMacros looks like another scraping tool, while those others look like testing tools that can be used for scraping.
- pedrocx486 8y ago>gay2sms That's a malware, isn't it?
- majewsky 8y agoNo idea, but if it is, and this is about protecting users from malicious addons, why did LinkedIn not just report that extension to Google?
- me_bx 8y ago> There's not a single extensions on that list that doesn't result in someone getting an unsolicited email. Nimble is just a CRM. Their extension does not crawl for email addresses, as far as I remember. Why does linkedIn need to "protect its users" from it? Isn't it rather to protect itself against the competition?
- acct1771 8y ago> result in someone getting an unsolicited email. That's pretty ballsy to bring up in a defense of LinkedIn.
- mirimir 8y agoRight. It ought to be "... result in someone getting an unsolicited email that didn't earn income for LinkedIn".
- kodablah 8y agoCan you link to where they say that? I would figure someone doing something so helpful for users would at least document it. There's no reason to be surreptitious when doing such a favor. One wonders if they'll start offering a LinkedIn AntiVirus download with such an altruistic approach towards protecting users from what they have installed.
- gkoberger 8y agoI think you're misunderstanding. LinkedIn isn't protecting the people with the extensions installed; they're protecting users FROM the people with the extensions.
- kodablah 8y agoAh, as an anti-scraper/anti-bot method, every user has all these local network requests made? Maybe it's the true reason, maybe not. Transparency is key here to assume anything more than the worst. Of course any of the rest of us with a modicum of smarts would just side load a custom extension via CLI args (or we'd just browser automate, headless if not detected). Even given the most generous justification, it reeks of careless decision makers playing whack-a-mole (likely fruitlessly) with the users in the crossfire.
- Buge 8y agoI think it's a cat and mouse game. The more that Linkedin publishes about their anti-spam techniques, the more information spammers have to try to evade those anti-spam techniques.
- kodablah 8y agoIt can seem that way with server-side anti-scraping techniques with brute force detection and the like. But at some point you have to accept that playing the game on the client-side needs to stop escalating once you're making dozens of local extension resource requests in a user's browser. It makes me want to publish and maintain a legit scraper for LinkedIn that replicates human interaction. They'd DMCA the repo I'm sure, but it goes to show who fights against the open web. I see a "get X, Y, and Z features for free when you use LinkedIn Desktop instead of the website" coming.
- baxtr 8y agoWell, another good reason for LinkedIn to thi is to protect their revenues. I heard of headhunters who don’t want to pay their (high) monthly subscription fees and instead “hack” their system. I guess “hacking” includes using these extensions.
- derefr 8y agoRight. I once worked for a company that was trying to perform a business “matchmaking” service. We considered, as part of the implementation possibility-space, scraping people’s connections from LinkedIn in order to enhance our results. But LinkedIn has many advanced anti-scraping heuristics in their backend; this is just one of many. So we scrapped that option (before ever getting around to considering the ethics of it.)
- osozg 8y agoIn my mind I am associating this with LinkedIn's failed attempt to keep scrapers off their website by suing them (ref: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/court-rejects-linkedin-claim-that-unauthorized-scraping-is-hacking/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/court-rejects-li...) Other companies are making money with these extensions on LinkedIn's website and LinkedIn is not happy about it