US moves closer to legalizing LinkedIn data scraping

2022-04-21

Since 2017, LinkedIn has been fighting a legal battle against scraping — the automated collection of data available on websites. I wrote about this a few years ago in an article about automating LinkedIn activity. LinkedIn automation was a hot topic back then, especially in the context of browser extensions used by recruiters and ATS systems.

What’s the case about?

hiQ Labs is a startup that provided corporations with data predicting which of their employees were likely to quit. hiQ got this data from LinkedIn, using scraping tools to automatically collect information from public user profiles.

It started with a cease-and-desist letter from LinkedIn to hiQ, followed by LinkedIn blocking hiQ’s access to the platform. hiQ sued LinkedIn, arguing that LinkedIn’s actions restricted competition and violated state and federal laws. hiQ also claimed that LinkedIn doesn’t hold exclusive rights to user data, and that collecting publicly available data doesn’t violate privacy rules.

First ruling.

In 2017, a California court ordered LinkedIn to give hiQ access to user data. This was LinkedIn’s first — and very public — defeat. The court’s reasoning included:

hiQ used publicly available user data.
hiQ acted in the public interest (positive impact on free speech and the economy, unlike LinkedIn’s actions against hiQ, which restricted competition).
LinkedIn’s actions made hiQ’s business impossible, while hiQ’s scraping had no negative impact on LinkedIn’s revenue.
hiQ acted in good faith and had informed LinkedIn about its activities.
LinkedIn doesn’t own the copyright to user data — the users themselves do.

Second ruling.

LinkedIn appealed, and in 2019 the appellate court ruled that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which LinkedIn had accused hiQ of violating, had not been breached. Another win for hiQ.

Third ruling.

LinkedIn appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court, which provided guidance on interpreting the disputed provisions and sent the case back to the appellate court. The new ruling, issued on Monday, April 18, 2022, confirmed that scraping publicly available data does not violate the CFAA.

It’s not over.

LinkedIn isn’t giving up and has already announced further legal action to fight scraping.

Does this case affect regulations in Poland or the EU?

No. Poland and Europe operate under different legislation. US court rulings have no legal force in the EU.

Can you collect and process LinkedIn user data in Poland without their consent?

You can, under certain conditions — but that’s a topic big enough for its own article. I covered GDPR-compliant sourcing and direct search in a separate GDPR recruitment guide.