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I think your main obligation is not to the entity from which you’re scraping the data, but the people whom the data is about. For example, the recent case betw
by jakelazaroff 7y ago
I think your main obligation is not to the entity from which you’re scraping the data, but the people whom the data is about.
For example, the recent case between LinkedIn and hiQ centered on the latter not respecting the former’s terms of service. But even if they had followed that to the T, what hiQ is doing — scraping people’s profiles and snitching to their employer when it looked like they were job hunting — is incredibly unethical.
Invert power structures. Think about how the information you scrape could be misused. Allow people to opt out.
- monkpit 7y agoI tried to find a source to back up what you’re saying about hiQ “snitching” to employers about employees searching for jobs, but all I can find is vague documentation about the legal suit hiQ v. LinkedIn. Do you have a link to an article or something?
- jakelazaroff 7y agoSure, it’s mentioned in the EFF article about the lawsuit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/victory-ruling-hiq-v-linkedin-protects-scraping-public-data https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/victory-ruling-hiq-v-l... > HiQ Labs’ business model involves scraping publicly available LinkedIn data to create corporate analytics tools that could determine when employees might leave for another company, or what trainings companies should invest in for their employees.
- lkjdsklf 7y agoIt's their actual product. Keeper. > Keeper is the first HCM tool to offer predictive attrition insights about an organization's employees based on publicly available data.
- aspyct 7y agoThat's a fair point indeed. I don't think I will ever expose non-anonymized data, because that's just too sensitive. But if I ever do, I'll make sure people are made aware they are listed, and that they can opt out easily.