5 ms·

Not a lawyer but: > Cease and desist developing, offering, or using software or programs with features developed, marketed, or intended for automating activity

by belval 4y ago

Not a lawyer but: > Cease and desist developing, offering, or using software or programs with features developed, marketed, or intended for automating activity on LinkedIn’s website or app, scraping LinkedIn member data, or otherwise violating the LinkedIn User Agreement; > Cease and desist marketing or advertising Browserflow as a tool or service to be used in a manner that violates LinkedIn’s User Agreement, or promoting Browserflow in any way that represents or suggests functionality or features that can be used to violate LinkedIn’s User Agreement; > Cease and desist violating LinkedIn’s intellectual property rights by removing from all Browserflow materials all unauthorized uses of logos likely to cause confusion with LinkedIn’s trademark; and > Affirm in writing that you will not engage in any violations of the LinkedIn User Agreement in the future. Just remove all LinkedIn examples and tell them you will stop marketing it as a LinkedIn scraping tool in the future. I don't know your extension if you make any "significant" money then get a real lawyer to look it over.

bee_rider 4y ago
> Affirm in writing that you will not engage in any violations of the LinkedIn User Agreement in the future. This seems like the weirdest one to me. I mean if they don’t have a LinkedIn user account, why should they abide by the User Agreement?
- throwanem 4y ago
  Why would you assume someone who develops a browser extension marketed in part as a LinkedIn scraping tool does not have a LinkedIn account?
  - nkozyra 4y ago
    I think the matter of whether they have an account or not is irrelevant. The violations listed are not directed to a LinkedIn account.
    - throwanem 4y ago
      The cited EULA terms don't depend for applicability on creating an account, only on accessing LinkedIn. Whether or not that's enforceable and in what jurisdiction is a different question, and not one that's relevant here; unless OP is extremely foolish, we are not about to see that question tested again in court. In any case, LinkedIn accounts are clickwrapped in the EULA, and you can't build a scraper for stuff behind their auth wall - which, I believe as a direct response to LinkedIn vs. HiQ, is more or less everything they serve - without being able to get past it yourself. So the question of whether or not OP has agreed to the EULA, which LinkedIn complains Browserflow is marketed in part to violate, isn't remotely germane to a meaningful discussion of the issue.
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      I disagree that it is irrelevant. A contract applies to the person who signed it, not the (inanimate) account. I mean if they have a contract with LinkedIn and they are violating it, they should stop lol. Since they make money from the tool apparently, and LinkedIn accounts are worthless, I’d probably stop violating the contract by terminating my LinkedIn account.
      - throwanem 4y ago
        You don't think a team of Microsoft lawyers could find a way to sue you for marketing to LinkedIn users a tool expressly designed and marketed for the purpose of violating the EULA those users agreed to as a condition of creating their accounts? Thank you for exemplifying the value of the old advice against litigating pro se, I suppose. LinkedIn is being a lot more generous here than they really need to be. Getting an Ask HN to the front page about it wasn't terribly smart, but then this is why the only good advice for OP in this thread is "talk to a lawyer", which anyone who's already incorporated an LLC really should not need telling, but whatever.
        bee_rider 4y ago
        It is a general purpose tool. I mean autohotkey or any open source web browser could be hypothetically used/modified to scrape websites. What do you think about just removing that example?
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    It is possible that they have an account, but it is a general purpose tool for scraping, so I assumed it isn’t necessarily the case. If they have an account and are blatantly violating the TOS, that’s just looking for trouble, they should stop.
- belval 4y ago
  IANAL, but there is a big chance that this is just a boilerplate cease and desist used for every project that comes up when you google "scraping linkedin". I would not over think it. Lawyer/legal time is costly, they probably didn't look into it too deep, they just saw the LinkedIn logo with "Scrape LinkedIn" written next to it on OP's main page.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  Welcome to the Law! They can ask, and explaining that you are not party to their EULA is a perfectly valid counterargument. They will argue that by accessing their website with the service you are agreeing to the terms, and then you wind up in expensive litigation. The demands seem pretty reasonable in this case, I'd probably accede.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    I clearly don’t know anything about the law but I’d definitely want to talk to a lawyer before agreeing to that point, assuming I didn’t have a LinkedIn account. If I didn’t already have an agreement with LinkedIn, right when they’ve noticed me and are getting litigious sounding seems at least to this layman like the wrong time to start signing agreements they’ve sent.
- xypage 4y ago
  A user agreement isn't just a "person with account" agreement, in fact, if you read the first sentence of the introduction [1] to their current one, you'll see it says > You agree that by clicking “Join Now”, “Join LinkedIn”, “Sign Up” or similar, registering, accessing or using our services (described below), you are agreeing to enter into a legally binding contract with LinkedIn in other words, anyone that "access[es] or us[es]" their services are agreeing to the contract. This definitely includes what OP is doing. [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement#introduction https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement#introduction
  - _Algernon_ 4y ago
    So if I write on a piece of paper "If bob breathes, he owes me $100" that would also be valid contract? Not a lawyer, but that is ridiculous. You'd have to accept the terms to even be permitted to read the terms, as they are hosted on linkedin.com.
    - kadoban 4y ago
      For a couple of reasons, no. Bob would have to agree. And Bob would have to be getting _something_ out of it. (I'm not a lawyer)
    - xypage 4y ago
      No of course not, but there's a huge difference between someones bodily autonomy and using a service that you provide. Are you saying that companies should only be able to apply their terms of service to people who make accounts on their website? Or that they should host those terms somewhere besides their own domain so that you can access them without having to abide by them?
      - bee_rider 4y ago
        The terms of service should only apply to people who use the services. For example if you use Firefox to connect to a website, and violate the TOS of that website, Mozilla would obviously not be involved.
      - 4y ago
Someone 4y ago
> Affirm in writing that you will not engage in any violations of the LinkedIn User Agreement in the future. “I’ll never do it again” may help decrease the punishment if this ends up in court, but why would you promise that now? IANAL, certainly not for every jurisdiction on earth, but I would think that’s risky from your side in that you’d have to agree to their user agreement, even if, in the future, they put things in it that aren’t legally enforceable.
- etothepii 4y ago
  IANAL. I know the US is messed up but this isn't ending up in criminal court so punishment doesn't seem like the right word. Surely, damages would be ineffective by future conduct. I can't see a jury award punitive damages or exemplary damages for scrapping LinkedIn.
arwineap 4y ago
> Just remove all LinkedIn examples and tell them you will stop marketing it as a LinkedIn scraping tool in the future. I don't know your extension if you make any "significant" money then get a real lawyer to look it over. Remove all linked in examples, and indicate that you will not include them in your docs again I wouldn't admit to writing or advertising this as a linkedin scraping tool regardless of if that was my original intention or not
- gremlinsinc 4y ago
  op should open source their old docs until there are enough forks then pull it.
mattnewton 4y ago
Do stop using their trademark or making reference to them immediately and let them know you have done so, ie points 1-3. But, I would say do not agree to any future conduct in writing on behalf of your business without talking to a lawyer first - I think you need to carefully word a response around that to avoid liability. IANAL, this is not legal advice, etc.
heavyset_go 4y ago
I'd remove any mention of LinkedIn, but I also wouldn't tell them anything. You've removed anything they'd sue you to remove, writing to them afterwards gives them more material to nail you with in the future. Not a lawyer, either.
gremlinsinc 4y ago
could they say something like: you can use it to scrape popular social media sites, a few fictitious examples are: MaceBook, bootube, rinkedrin, rikrok. people get the meaning without directly naming them.

by belval 4y ago

bee_rider 4y ago

> Affirm in writing that you will not engage in any violations of the LinkedIn User Agreement in the future. This seems like the weirdest one to me. I mean if they don’t have a LinkedIn user account, why should they abide by the User Agreement?

throwanem 4y ago
Why would you assume someone who develops a browser extension marketed in part as a LinkedIn scraping tool does not have a LinkedIn account?
- nkozyra 4y ago
  I think the matter of whether they have an account or not is irrelevant. The violations listed are not directed to a LinkedIn account.
  - throwanem 4y ago
    The cited EULA terms don't depend for applicability on creating an account, only on accessing LinkedIn. Whether or not that's enforceable and in what jurisdiction is a different question, and not one that's relevant here; unless OP is extremely foolish, we are not about to see that question tested again in court. In any case, LinkedIn accounts are clickwrapped in the EULA, and you can't build a scraper for stuff behind their auth wall - which, I believe as a direct response to LinkedIn vs. HiQ, is more or less everything they serve - without being able to get past it yourself. So the question of whether or not OP has agreed to the EULA, which LinkedIn complains Browserflow is marketed in part to violate, isn't remotely germane to a meaningful discussion of the issue.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    I disagree that it is irrelevant. A contract applies to the person who signed it, not the (inanimate) account. I mean if they have a contract with LinkedIn and they are violating it, they should stop lol. Since they make money from the tool apparently, and LinkedIn accounts are worthless, I’d probably stop violating the contract by terminating my LinkedIn account.
    - throwanem 4y ago
      You don't think a team of Microsoft lawyers could find a way to sue you for marketing to LinkedIn users a tool expressly designed and marketed for the purpose of violating the EULA those users agreed to as a condition of creating their accounts? Thank you for exemplifying the value of the old advice against litigating pro se, I suppose. LinkedIn is being a lot more generous here than they really need to be. Getting an Ask HN to the front page about it wasn't terribly smart, but then this is why the only good advice for OP in this thread is "talk to a lawyer", which anyone who's already incorporated an LLC really should not need telling, but whatever.
      - bee_rider 4y ago
        It is a general purpose tool. I mean autohotkey or any open source web browser could be hypothetically used/modified to scrape websites. What do you think about just removing that example?
- bee_rider 4y ago
  It is possible that they have an account, but it is a general purpose tool for scraping, so I assumed it isn’t necessarily the case. If they have an account and are blatantly violating the TOS, that’s just looking for trouble, they should stop.
belval 4y ago
IANAL, but there is a big chance that this is just a boilerplate cease and desist used for every project that comes up when you google "scraping linkedin". I would not over think it. Lawyer/legal time is costly, they probably didn't look into it too deep, they just saw the LinkedIn logo with "Scrape LinkedIn" written next to it on OP's main page.
arrosenberg 4y ago
Welcome to the Law! They can ask, and explaining that you are not party to their EULA is a perfectly valid counterargument. They will argue that by accessing their website with the service you are agreeing to the terms, and then you wind up in expensive litigation. The demands seem pretty reasonable in this case, I'd probably accede.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I clearly don’t know anything about the law but I’d definitely want to talk to a lawyer before agreeing to that point, assuming I didn’t have a LinkedIn account. If I didn’t already have an agreement with LinkedIn, right when they’ve noticed me and are getting litigious sounding seems at least to this layman like the wrong time to start signing agreements they’ve sent.
xypage 4y ago
A user agreement isn't just a "person with account" agreement, in fact, if you read the first sentence of the introduction [1] to their current one, you'll see it says > You agree that by clicking “Join Now”, “Join LinkedIn”, “Sign Up” or similar, registering, accessing or using our services (described below), you are agreeing to enter into a legally binding contract with LinkedIn in other words, anyone that "access[es] or us[es]" their services are agreeing to the contract. This definitely includes what OP is doing. [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement#introduction https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement#introduction
- _Algernon_ 4y ago
  So if I write on a piece of paper "If bob breathes, he owes me $100" that would also be valid contract? Not a lawyer, but that is ridiculous. You'd have to accept the terms to even be permitted to read the terms, as they are hosted on linkedin.com.
  - kadoban 4y ago
    For a couple of reasons, no. Bob would have to agree. And Bob would have to be getting _something_ out of it. (I'm not a lawyer)
  - xypage 4y ago
    No of course not, but there's a huge difference between someones bodily autonomy and using a service that you provide. Are you saying that companies should only be able to apply their terms of service to people who make accounts on their website? Or that they should host those terms somewhere besides their own domain so that you can access them without having to abide by them?
    - bee_rider 4y ago
      The terms of service should only apply to people who use the services. For example if you use Firefox to connect to a website, and violate the TOS of that website, Mozilla would obviously not be involved.
    - 4y ago

Someone 4y ago

> Affirm in writing that you will not engage in any violations of the LinkedIn User Agreement in the future. “I’ll never do it again” may help decrease the punishment if this ends up in court, but why would you promise that now? IANAL, certainly not for every jurisdiction on earth, but I would think that’s risky from your side in that you’d have to agree to their user agreement, even if, in the future, they put things in it that aren’t legally enforceable.

etothepii 4y ago
IANAL. I know the US is messed up but this isn't ending up in criminal court so punishment doesn't seem like the right word. Surely, damages would be ineffective by future conduct. I can't see a jury award punitive damages or exemplary damages for scrapping LinkedIn.

arwineap 4y ago

> Just remove all LinkedIn examples and tell them you will stop marketing it as a LinkedIn scraping tool in the future. I don't know your extension if you make any "significant" money then get a real lawyer to look it over. Remove all linked in examples, and indicate that you will not include them in your docs again I wouldn't admit to writing or advertising this as a linkedin scraping tool regardless of if that was my original intention or not

gremlinsinc 4y ago
op should open source their old docs until there are enough forks then pull it.

mattnewton 4y ago

Do stop using their trademark or making reference to them immediately and let them know you have done so, ie points 1-3. But, I would say do not agree to any future conduct in writing on behalf of your business without talking to a lawyer first - I think you need to carefully word a response around that to avoid liability. IANAL, this is not legal advice, etc.

heavyset_go 4y ago

I'd remove any mention of LinkedIn, but I also wouldn't tell them anything. You've removed anything they'd sue you to remove, writing to them afterwards gives them more material to nail you with in the future. Not a lawyer, either.

gremlinsinc 4y ago

could they say something like: you can use it to scrape popular social media sites, a few fictitious examples are: MaceBook, bootube, rinkedrin, rikrok. people get the meaning without directly naming them.