U.S. judge says LinkedIn cannot block startup from public profile data
Here&#x27;s a copy of the pleading:
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.almcms.com&#x2F;contrib&#x2F;content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;sites&#x2F;292&#x2F;2017&#x2F;06&#x2F;HiQvLinkedIn.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.almcms.com&#x2F;contrib&#x2F;content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;sites&#x2F;292&#x2F;2017...</a><p>&quot;In a press statement, LinkedIn says: &quot;Our members control the information that they make available to others on LinkedIn and they trust us to honor that control. HiQ is taking member data, without their knowledge, and using it for purposes our members haven&#x27;t agreed to.&quot;&quot;<p>I use a text-only browser.  As old-timers know the first web browser back in the early 1990&#x27;s was also text-only.  Text-only atill works great, believe it or not.  Especially for reading information like one finds on LinkedIn.<p>I cannot acess LinkedIn after the Microsoft acquisition.<p>Microsoft says members control access.  Do they check a box that says<p><pre><code>   [ ] Disallow blind users from viewing my profile as text-only.
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or<p><pre><code>   [ ] Disallow access by HiQ.
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The Microsoft statement says HiQ is &quot;taking member data&quot; <i>without their knowledge</i>.  This sounds as though members are unaware &quot;they&quot; had a decision to make whether HiQ can access their profile, or whether a noncommercial user can access their profile with, e.g, links, w3m, lynx or the W3 Consortium&#x27;s line mode browser.  Indeed I doubt members either know or care about such access.<p>And if Microsoft partners with a company such as HiQ, then do members get a veto on use of their profile?<p>I think members probably have no right to even be informed that such partnerships exist!<p>Did LinkedIn members have any say in whether the company could sell itself, and control over access to their profiles, to Microsoft?<p>Web users today generally have little ability to control how companies share their data (e.g. with advertisers and partner companies).<p>We saw this type of argument in the 3Taps case.  Where we were asked to believe Craigslist users were the ones enforcing their copyright or that they designated Craigslist to act as their agent.  Anyone who uses the web knows this is utter BS.<p>&quot;U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen will preside over Thursday&#x27;s hearing.  At an earlier proceeding, on June 29, he appeared torn by the issues presented. On the one hand, he expressed skepticism that the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act-a criminal statute-really barred the mere use of bots to harvest public information. &quot;You can get it manually if you hired a hundred million people to do it,&quot; he observed, &quot;but if you want to do it quickly and automatedly, you can&#x27;t do it? That is a crime?&quot;