One case that does seem to have the potential to be precedent setting in the US seems to be Air Canada's litigation against Seats.aero, who is also continuing to scrape Air Canada's award inventory data despite Air Canada loginwalling for award search a year after it filed this lawsuit. [1][2]
The broadly open internet is probably not long for this world. If you scrape using fake accounts, that clearly violates ToS you agree to. Whereas for public pages it's less clear how courts will rule.
With companies increasingly viewing their defenseability and value as their data, their online presence will become more gated, and curated through their managed experiences. Social media, news, reddit, etc are already like this, and it's not inconceivable that companies like Amazon, Ebay (who are fighting their own scraping battles) move the direction of sign in to visit more than a few pages.
This would mean that we'll all be forced to use accounts to see anything substantial within a site. And it'll be harder to view things across sites.
I know that this particular case is about scraping personal data, but I think it's a catalyst for many upcoming lawsuits that will broadly shift the internet in an undesirable direction
I created a second LinkedIn account for testing purposes and recently I started getting this which I thought was strange as this account had been live for several years. What changed recently? Could this restriction also be because of the push to block mass scraping?
----
Access to your account has been temporarily restricted
Why did this happen?
We take proactive actions to protect you when we detect potential unauthorized access or other activity that doesn’t comply with our policies.
What can I do next?
We first need to verify your identity to ensure your account safety. To regain access to your account, please submit a government-issued ID.
They've been doing this for a while, they also scan your browser for thousands of known extensions... It's basically impossible to create a new account unless you send them a pictures of your balls next to a valid passport
> they also scan your browser for thousands of known extensions
Works in Chrome, doesn't work in Firefox. Firefox randomizes extension IDs per install.
"Chrome extensions can expose internal files to web pages through the web_accessible_resources field in their manifest.json. When an extension is installed and has exposed a resource, a fetch() request to chrome-extension://{id}/{file} will succeed. When the extension is not installed, Chrome blocks the request and the promise rejects.
LinkedIn tests every extension in the list this way."
I recently tried to revive my account after not having accessed it for a decade or so. They asked for my gov issued ID, to be processed by the Persona service. Um, hell no.
They should fix impersonation of employees and more importantly recruiters. I've had so much fake recruiters contact me, I can't tell who is real and who is fake anymore.
It's an easy fix, just have the recruiters verify with an email every month, but they don't so it makes me think they either encourage it or they really don't care because they benefit somehow.
Huh. Well, federal court so national precedent against creating accounts to scrape registration only content. Probably a good thing IMO. I would put money on the public statement by a LinkedIn official saying "Your profile is yours" will bite them in the future as they certainly don't treat it that way.
It would be awesome if data that a site like Linkedin calls the “profile” could be containerized and encrypted in such a way that each individual user holds a key to a box with every piece of identifiable information, and can revoke the right for any 3rd party to access it.
>Well, federal court so national precedent against creating accounts to scrape registration only content.
I'm not familiar with US Civil Law. Is a precedent established when a consent agreement/settlement is put into place in the US, as is the case in this article?
Meanwhile, AI-generated slop sites that slurp up open APIs on ATSes are eating LinkedIn's lunch for job search. Very few companies are using LinkedIn as the place to manage applications, most are pushing to LinkedIn and redirecting to their ATSes.
Linkedin data is very valuable. Tons of businesses are built on the back of scraping LinkedIn. Kknd of disappointing they won this case tbh, because it basically just gave corpos extereme privledge to ruin people's lives. They've been trying to get this outcome for years.
Maybe not for the HN crowd, but it's a requirement for applying to a lot of places if you're just an average person and/ or not in tech. I only started getting interviews after I finally put a picture on my profile. It sucks, but its used by a LOT of employers if only to try to verify you're an actual person.
You'd have to ask them. They asked why people would use LinkedIn. "I have to have a LinkedIn profile in order to complete this application on Indeed" is a reason.
This isn't precedent setting.. it's a pure specific usecase that was blocked. Overall scraping is still legal and fine, per the earlier judgement.
One case that does seem to have the potential to be precedent setting in the US seems to be Air Canada's litigation against Seats.aero, who is also continuing to scrape Air Canada's award inventory data despite Air Canada loginwalling for award search a year after it filed this lawsuit. [1][2]
[1]: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ded.838...
[2]: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67896748/air-canada-v-l...
Unless the data collected is of a user that is an EU citizen. This needs prior approval and consent per GDPR.
The broadly open internet is probably not long for this world. If you scrape using fake accounts, that clearly violates ToS you agree to. Whereas for public pages it's less clear how courts will rule.
With companies increasingly viewing their defenseability and value as their data, their online presence will become more gated, and curated through their managed experiences. Social media, news, reddit, etc are already like this, and it's not inconceivable that companies like Amazon, Ebay (who are fighting their own scraping battles) move the direction of sign in to visit more than a few pages.
This would mean that we'll all be forced to use accounts to see anything substantial within a site. And it'll be harder to view things across sites.
I know that this particular case is about scraping personal data, but I think it's a catalyst for many upcoming lawsuits that will broadly shift the internet in an undesirable direction
You already have to sign in to view more than the featured reviews on an Amazon product page.
As you do to view completed listings on Ebay
If the ToS don’t allow scraping, there’s always the ”cyberhack” method of exfiltrating whatever data you want.
Make it look like it came from Enemy State of the week.
Everyone can maintain plausible deniability, and no one needs to get punished.
I created a second LinkedIn account for testing purposes and recently I started getting this which I thought was strange as this account had been live for several years. What changed recently? Could this restriction also be because of the push to block mass scraping?
----
Access to your account has been temporarily restricted
Why did this happen?
We take proactive actions to protect you when we detect potential unauthorized access or other activity that doesn’t comply with our policies.
What can I do next?
We first need to verify your identity to ensure your account safety. To regain access to your account, please submit a government-issued ID.
Learn more about verifying your identity.
----
They've been doing this for a while, they also scan your browser for thousands of known extensions... It's basically impossible to create a new account unless you send them a pictures of your balls next to a valid passport
> they also scan your browser for thousands of known extensions
Works in Chrome, doesn't work in Firefox. Firefox randomizes extension IDs per install.
"Chrome extensions can expose internal files to web pages through the web_accessible_resources field in their manifest.json. When an extension is installed and has exposed a resource, a fetch() request to chrome-extension://{id}/{file} will succeed. When the extension is not installed, Chrome blocks the request and the promise rejects.
LinkedIn tests every extension in the list this way."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47613981
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47967262
I recently tried to revive my account after not having accessed it for a decade or so. They asked for my gov issued ID, to be processed by the Persona service. Um, hell no.
Facebook has been doing this to me too when trying to revive my old account for using stuff like Marketplace.
I get wanting some kind of verification but hell no I'm not giving you a photo of my ID.
Let me make a new account then. But they won't.
They should fix impersonation of employees and more importantly recruiters. I've had so much fake recruiters contact me, I can't tell who is real and who is fake anymore.
It's an easy fix, just have the recruiters verify with an email every month, but they don't so it makes me think they either encourage it or they really don't care because they benefit somehow.
Huh. Well, federal court so national precedent against creating accounts to scrape registration only content. Probably a good thing IMO. I would put money on the public statement by a LinkedIn official saying "Your profile is yours" will bite them in the future as they certainly don't treat it that way.
It would be awesome if data that a site like Linkedin calls the “profile” could be containerized and encrypted in such a way that each individual user holds a key to a box with every piece of identifiable information, and can revoke the right for any 3rd party to access it.
That would make it “yours”
Like this? https://solidproject.org/
Pretty much!
Now all they have to do is solve the incentives problem, which seems far more difficult.
>Well, federal court so national precedent against creating accounts to scrape registration only content.
I'm not familiar with US Civil Law. Is a precedent established when a consent agreement/settlement is put into place in the US, as is the case in this article?
The article says "deal". I assume that means settlement between these parties rather than actually evaluating the law?
Wild that Linkedin cares about this and not about how basic product improvements. But hey at least my feed has reels now!
Only because that would depreciate the data they sell
Meanwhile, AI-generated slop sites that slurp up open APIs on ATSes are eating LinkedIn's lunch for job search. Very few companies are using LinkedIn as the place to manage applications, most are pushing to LinkedIn and redirecting to their ATSes.
https://basecareer.co/
https://unlisted.careers/
"Only we can exploit the massive data source that we have. Stop encroaching on our moat."
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
I wonder what was the point of scraping self-aggrandizing AI-written slop in the first place?
This site which I sadly must use from time to time is truly one of the most pretentious annoying places on the web.
Linkedin data is very valuable. Tons of businesses are built on the back of scraping LinkedIn. Kknd of disappointing they won this case tbh, because it basically just gave corpos extereme privledge to ruin people's lives. They've been trying to get this outcome for years.
Why would anyone use LinkedIn in the first place? It's not like anyone is getting jobs through it with all the AI slop and corporate kowtowing.
You'll also benefit from better privacy if you never register to begin with.
> It's not like anyone is getting jobs through it
Source:
It is used for a lot more than just finding jobs, but I think a lot of people do in fact successfully find jobs with it too, even today.
Maybe not for the HN crowd, but it's a requirement for applying to a lot of places if you're just an average person and/ or not in tech. I only started getting interviews after I finally put a picture on my profile. It sucks, but its used by a LOT of employers if only to try to verify you're an actual person.
Have they never heard of the telephone?
You'd have to ask them. They asked why people would use LinkedIn. "I have to have a LinkedIn profile in order to complete this application on Indeed" is a reason.
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