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I disagree, I think we should push back hard on behavior like this. What business is it of LinkedIn's what browser extensions I have installed? I think the fram

I disagree, I think we should push back hard on behavior like this. What business is it of LinkedIn's what browser extensions I have installed? I think the framing for this is appropriate.

haswell 6mo ago
To broaden my point, I think we’d find that many websites we use are doing this. My point isn’t that this is acceptable or that we shouldn’t push back against it. We should. My point is that this doesn’t sound particularly surprising or unique to LinkedIn, and that the framing of the article seems a bit misleading as a result.
- devy 6mo ago
  > To broaden my point, I think we’d find that many websites we use are doing this. Your point of "I think we’d find that many websites we use are doing this" doesn't make LinkedIn's behavior ok! By your logic, if our privacy rights are invaded which is illegal in most jurisdiction, and then it become ok because many companies do illegal things??
  - haswell 6mo ago
    Absolutely not. At no point am I saying this is ok. I’m saying that the framing of the article makes this sound like LinkedIn is the Big Bad when the reality is far worse - they’re just one in a sea of entities doing this kind of thing. If anything, the article undersells the scale of the issue.
  - coldpie 6mo ago
    You really need to work on your reading comprehension, dude.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- autoexec 6mo ago
  I've love it if LinkedIn got successfully sued for millions and it resulted in similar lawsuits against every other website that did this sort of thing.
kps 6mo ago
Why is it possible for a web site to determine what browser extensions I have installed? If there are legitimate uses, why isn't this gated behind a permission prompt, like things like location and camera?
- haswell 6mo ago
  This, to me, seems like the more salient point. A headline like “Major browsers allow websites to see your installed extensions” seems more appropriate here. We’ve known for a long time that advertisers/“security” vendors use as many detectable characteristics as possible to constrict unique fingerprints. This seems like a major enabler of even more invasive fingerprinting and that seems like the bigger issue here.
  - acheron 6mo ago
    This is a Chrome thing. It’s a safe bet that if you use Google products you don’t care about privacy anyway. “Google product collects info about you: news at 11.”
    - taneq 6mo ago
      Google cares deeply about privacy. Google defines privacy as them not giving your private data that they have collected to anyone else unless you ask them to.
      - dmoose 6mo ago
        Google cares deeply about privacy. Google defines privacy as them not giving your private data that they have collected to anyone who hasn't paid them for it or can compel them to give it up.
        seanw444 6mo ago
        There's a fourth amendment case on the Supreme Court docket (Chatrie v. U.S.) about Google searching a massive amount of user data to find people in a location at a specific time, at police request. The case is about whether the police's warrant warranted such a wide scope of search (if general warrants are allowed). Point being: Google will 100% give your info to the police, regardless of whether the police have the legal right to it or not, and regardless of whether you actually committed a crime or not. Bonus points: the federal court that ruled on the case said that it likely violated the fourth amendment, but they allowed the police to admit the evidence anyway because of the "good faith" clause, which is a new one for me. Time to add it to the list of horribly abusable exceptions (qualified immunity, civil asset forfeiture, and eminent domain coming to mind).
casey2 6mo ago
[flagged]
Aurornis 6mo ago
> What business is it of LinkedIn's what browser extensions I have installed? The list of extensions they scan for has been extracted from the code. It was all extensions related to spamming and scraping LinkedIn last time this was posted: Extensions to scrape your LinkedIn session and extract contact info for lead lists, extensions to generate AI message spam. That seems like fair game for their business.
- tartoran 6mo ago
  And instead LinkedIn is scraping all users computers?
  - Aurornis 6mo ago
    This doesn’t fit the description of scraping by any normal definition. It’s a classic feature probe structure, where the features happen to be scraping extensions. I think it’s kind of funny that HN has gone so reactionary at tech companies that the comments here have become twisted against the anti-spam measures instituted on a website that will never trigger on any of their PCs, because HN users aren’t installing LinkedIn scrape and spam extensions.
    - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
      HackerNews users used to be the type that would do the scraping, so they could Hack the data into whatever format or integration they desired. It's unfortunate to see folks here who don't support that – interoperability is at the heart of the Hacker Ethic. LinkedIn (along with any other big tech companies locking down and crippling their APIs) is wrong to even try to block it. Is it an issue of the resources scrapers consume? No: Even ordinary users trying to get API access on a registered persistent account linked to their name are stymied in accessing their own data. LinkedIn simply doesn't want you to access your own data via API, or in any manner that isn't blessed by them. That ain't right.
      - warkdarrior 6mo ago
jacquesm 6mo ago
> I think we should push back hard on behavior like this. Indeed, so I gather all of you have canceled your LI account over this? I never made one in the first place because it was pretty clear to me that this company - even before the acquisition - had nothing good in mind.
MikeNotThePope 6mo ago
If I had to guess, LinkedIn would be primarily searching for extensions that violate their terms of service (e.g. something that could be used to scrape data). They put a lot of effort into circumventing automated data collection. I could be wrong.
phendrenad2 6mo ago
So why not say that LinkedIn is murdering people? I mean, if all you care about is raising awareness with maximal clickbait...

I disagree, I think we should push back hard on behavior like this. What business is it of LinkedIn's what browser extensions I have installed? I think the framing for this is appropriate.

haswell 6mo ago

To broaden my point, I think we’d find that many websites we use are doing this. My point isn’t that this is acceptable or that we shouldn’t push back against it. We should. My point is that this doesn’t sound particularly surprising or unique to LinkedIn, and that the framing of the article seems a bit misleading as a result.

devy 6mo ago
> To broaden my point, I think we’d find that many websites we use are doing this. Your point of "I think we’d find that many websites we use are doing this" doesn't make LinkedIn's behavior ok! By your logic, if our privacy rights are invaded which is illegal in most jurisdiction, and then it become ok because many companies do illegal things??
- haswell 6mo ago
  Absolutely not. At no point am I saying this is ok. I’m saying that the framing of the article makes this sound like LinkedIn is the Big Bad when the reality is far worse - they’re just one in a sea of entities doing this kind of thing. If anything, the article undersells the scale of the issue.
- coldpie 6mo ago
  You really need to work on your reading comprehension, dude.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
autoexec 6mo ago
I've love it if LinkedIn got successfully sued for millions and it resulted in similar lawsuits against every other website that did this sort of thing.

kps 6mo ago

Why is it possible for a web site to determine what browser extensions I have installed? If there are legitimate uses, why isn't this gated behind a permission prompt, like things like location and camera?

haswell 6mo ago
This, to me, seems like the more salient point. A headline like “Major browsers allow websites to see your installed extensions” seems more appropriate here. We’ve known for a long time that advertisers/“security” vendors use as many detectable characteristics as possible to constrict unique fingerprints. This seems like a major enabler of even more invasive fingerprinting and that seems like the bigger issue here.
- acheron 6mo ago
  This is a Chrome thing. It’s a safe bet that if you use Google products you don’t care about privacy anyway. “Google product collects info about you: news at 11.”
  - taneq 6mo ago
    Google cares deeply about privacy. Google defines privacy as them not giving your private data that they have collected to anyone else unless you ask them to.
    - dmoose 6mo ago
      Google cares deeply about privacy. Google defines privacy as them not giving your private data that they have collected to anyone who hasn't paid them for it or can compel them to give it up.
      - seanw444 6mo ago
        There's a fourth amendment case on the Supreme Court docket (Chatrie v. U.S.) about Google searching a massive amount of user data to find people in a location at a specific time, at police request. The case is about whether the police's warrant warranted such a wide scope of search (if general warrants are allowed). Point being: Google will 100% give your info to the police, regardless of whether the police have the legal right to it or not, and regardless of whether you actually committed a crime or not. Bonus points: the federal court that ruled on the case said that it likely violated the fourth amendment, but they allowed the police to admit the evidence anyway because of the "good faith" clause, which is a new one for me. Time to add it to the list of horribly abusable exceptions (qualified immunity, civil asset forfeiture, and eminent domain coming to mind).

casey2 6mo ago

[flagged]

Aurornis 6mo ago

> What business is it of LinkedIn's what browser extensions I have installed? The list of extensions they scan for has been extracted from the code. It was all extensions related to spamming and scraping LinkedIn last time this was posted: Extensions to scrape your LinkedIn session and extract contact info for lead lists, extensions to generate AI message spam. That seems like fair game for their business.

tartoran 6mo ago
And instead LinkedIn is scraping all users computers?
- Aurornis 6mo ago
  This doesn’t fit the description of scraping by any normal definition. It’s a classic feature probe structure, where the features happen to be scraping extensions. I think it’s kind of funny that HN has gone so reactionary at tech companies that the comments here have become twisted against the anti-spam measures instituted on a website that will never trigger on any of their PCs, because HN users aren’t installing LinkedIn scrape and spam extensions.
  - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
    HackerNews users used to be the type that would do the scraping, so they could Hack the data into whatever format or integration they desired. It's unfortunate to see folks here who don't support that – interoperability is at the heart of the Hacker Ethic. LinkedIn (along with any other big tech companies locking down and crippling their APIs) is wrong to even try to block it. Is it an issue of the resources scrapers consume? No: Even ordinary users trying to get API access on a registered persistent account linked to their name are stymied in accessing their own data. LinkedIn simply doesn't want you to access your own data via API, or in any manner that isn't blessed by them. That ain't right.
    - warkdarrior 6mo ago

jacquesm 6mo ago

> I think we should push back hard on behavior like this. Indeed, so I gather all of you have canceled your LI account over this? I never made one in the first place because it was pretty clear to me that this company - even before the acquisition - had nothing good in mind.

MikeNotThePope 6mo ago

If I had to guess, LinkedIn would be primarily searching for extensions that violate their terms of service (e.g. something that could be used to scrape data). They put a lot of effort into circumventing automated data collection. I could be wrong.

phendrenad2 6mo ago

So why not say that LinkedIn is murdering people? I mean, if all you care about is raising awareness with maximal clickbait...