4 ms·

Linkedin is taking this to the Supreme Court: https://www.law360.com/articles/1237505/linkedin-will-go-to-supreme-court-over-data-scraping https://www.law360.co

Linkedin is taking this to the Supreme Court: https://www.law360.com/articles/1237505/linkedin-will-go-to-supreme-court-over-data-scraping https://www.law360.com/articles/1237505/linkedin-will-go-to-... No ultimate decision was ever made, and no, this doesn't make web scraping 100% legal. Wake me up when there's a new announcement because anyone interested in this already know this old news.

deleted 7y ago
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ashman5 7y ago
5-4 overturn?
Aperocky 7y ago
Bad look on LinkedIn, if you want the information to be visible publicly, don’t fault others for learning that information. Gate the information behind a login then sue the scraper for violating TOS and not scraping itself, I can understand that.
- EGreg 7y ago
  Doesnt this ruling say login gate doesnt matter
zackmorris 7y ago
This is a really big deal. Currently (IMHO) the US Supreme Court is a wholly-owned subsidiary of multinational corporations due to the shenanigans that happened with Obama, McConnell and Garland, so will likely side with LinkedIn since it's the larger corporation: https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624467256/what-happened-with-merrick-garland-in-2016-and-why-it-matters-now https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624467256/what-happened-with-... I feel like siding with LinkedIn here would open up the web to extortion though, like troll companies that would send cease and desist letters to all scrapers (even search engines). I think it could be argued that letting one company scrape when another is denied is discrimination. Then again, I don't know how conservative and republican-leaning courts decide corporate law. Maybe in this case since so much money is at stake, they might worry that banning scraping would infringe on something like free speech and ruffle the feathers of some of the wealthier contributors in their base. Especially on the media side since I imagine they use bots in one form or another to find newsworthy stories. IANAL (obviously!), I just find it entertaining/dismaying to ponder these things in these times.
- shkkmo 7y ago
  The thing is, this is still all about a preliminary injunction. Even if the injunction is found to be without merit, that still doesn't provide a final answer to of if LinkedIn can successfully sue HiQ to force HiQ to stop scraping under the CFAA.
Eli_P 7y ago
The link you gave, says (sic): > Sign up now for free access to this content > [...] > Email (NOTE: Free email domains not supported) I think this sort of antinomy[1] sounds ironical especially in this thread. This is practically legal dependency injection pattern, when you call something free, then administer antinomies, catches-22, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomy

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ashman5 7y ago

5-4 overturn?

Aperocky 7y ago

Bad look on LinkedIn, if you want the information to be visible publicly, don’t fault others for learning that information. Gate the information behind a login then sue the scraper for violating TOS and not scraping itself, I can understand that.

EGreg 7y ago
Doesnt this ruling say login gate doesnt matter

zackmorris 7y ago

This is a really big deal. Currently (IMHO) the US Supreme Court is a wholly-owned subsidiary of multinational corporations due to the shenanigans that happened with Obama, McConnell and Garland, so will likely side with LinkedIn since it's the larger corporation: https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624467256/what-happened-with-merrick-garland-in-2016-and-why-it-matters-now https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/624467256/what-happened-with-... I feel like siding with LinkedIn here would open up the web to extortion though, like troll companies that would send cease and desist letters to all scrapers (even search engines). I think it could be argued that letting one company scrape when another is denied is discrimination. Then again, I don't know how conservative and republican-leaning courts decide corporate law. Maybe in this case since so much money is at stake, they might worry that banning scraping would infringe on something like free speech and ruffle the feathers of some of the wealthier contributors in their base. Especially on the media side since I imagine they use bots in one form or another to find newsworthy stories. IANAL (obviously!), I just find it entertaining/dismaying to ponder these things in these times.

shkkmo 7y ago
The thing is, this is still all about a preliminary injunction. Even if the injunction is found to be without merit, that still doesn't provide a final answer to of if LinkedIn can successfully sue HiQ to force HiQ to stop scraping under the CFAA.

Eli_P 7y ago

The link you gave, says (sic): > Sign up now for free access to this content > [...] > Email (NOTE: Free email domains not supported) I think this sort of antinomy[1] sounds ironical especially in this thread. This is practically legal dependency injection pattern, when you call something free, then administer antinomies, catches-22, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinomy