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by Barrin92 2434 days ago
As expected a lot of people here talking about public data and whatnot, but that is a horrible decision.

"Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon said hiQ, which makes software to help employers determine whether employees will stay or quit, showed it faced irreparable harm absent an injunction because it might go out of business without access.[...]

“LinkedIn has no protected property interest in the data contributed by its users, as the users retain ownership over their profiles,” Berzon wrote. “And as to the publicly available profiles, the users quite evidently intend them to be accessed by others,” including prospective employers."

This isn't some sort of empowerment of the public, it's surveillance capitalism. No end-user in their right mind publishes data on LinkedIn with the expectation that the information is bought up by a third party, analysed, and then sold back to your employer in a way that exposes your personal intent and may even threaten your job. The only thing this accomplishes is enabling shady business models that feed of a sort of internet voyeurism, and at the end of the day it'll lead to people turning their profiles private and making LinkedIn more difficult to use if you're someone who is looking for information in good faith.

3 comments

> No end-user in their right mind publishes data on LinkedIn with the expectation that the information is bought up by a third party, analysed, and then sold back to your employer in a way that exposes your personal intent and may even threaten your job.

Yes they do. Do you think people who are afraid of their employer finding out about something would show it on their public LinkedIn profile in the first place? If a manager or colleague who they've likely already "connected" with simply opens your LinkedIn profile in their web browser and sees the same info that hiQ sees, then it's game over. If you don't want your employer to know, don't publish it on your public profile. It's absurd to suggest that some minimal manual effort to load a few profiles is a serious privacy defense.

Your argument is to let corporations effectively make law.
Corporations do effectively make law, at least in the US. Politicians have neither the time nor the expertise. There have been some widely read articles about how sometimes that law is not even freely available to the public.
Sounds like we agree that's a bad thing. To your first sentence, no, they propose laws. They dont get to revise their ToS and have it be a violation of the law when you ignore it. That would be like the EPA making a rule, because they were granted that power by congress.
My impression is that effectively, they do. Officially, the laws have to be approved, just like you have to click "ok" when you see a user agreement, but it doesn't mean you have any effective control. Control on paper doesn't mean control in reality, just like accounting is different from economics.

It's possible the current system is "the worst, except for all the others". I don't think you can do without expertise in making policy, but you also can't do without good faith/intent, so I don't know how you can resolve that.

If it was really that easy then we would have SOPA, ACTA, CISPA, PIPA, TPP and about 20 other bad ideas put on paper.

All of those failed, if they had not, MegaCorp would have significantly more power. Heck TPP had ways for a foreign corporation to sue a local government if they didnt like them banning fracking (for example).

Same thing with NN, if it was named honestly it would be called "The More Government Regulation of The Internet Act of 2019". Next up will be some sad attempt at a US GDPR, but fortunatly our beautiful 1st Amendment throws a wrench in that, it's effictively the gov telling people (corps are made of people:) what they can and can not remember.

But in general, I agree with your sentiment, and if it's more than half a page long (written in crayon) it shouldnt even be considered.

how did you get that out of my post? My argument is that people should make laws that ends the business model of companies like hiQ, and that LinkedIn, although obviously acting in self-interest, is legitimately defending its platform here against third parties who are trying to use public information in privacy-violating ways.
By letting ToS have the force of law...
What is a contract if not something backed by the force of law?

There's a big difference between "I want a public profile so colleagues and employers can contact me about opportunities" vs "I want a public profile so some third party I have no knowledge of can enable others to discriminate against me".

Try contacting the police if someone breaches your tos. They will tell you to get a lawyer and not bother them.

You have to sue for breach of contract. It's a civil matter rather than a legal one if breached.

hiQ didnt sign a contract. It's public info. They broke the ToS, but unless the ToS get inserted into a contract, and signed by both parties we arent even in Civil Law terratory, which is what this excellent court decision confirmed.
> No end-user in their right mind publishes data on LinkedIn with the expectation that the information is bought up by a third party, analysed, and then sold back to your employer in a way that exposes your personal intent and may even threaten your job.

Doesn't that get covered by laws such as GDPR (where applicable)? Just because I can scape your profile doesn't mean I can publish it, sell it etc (or even keep it). I can do it with your consent, and LinkedIn can't complain, isn't that it?

GDPR requires affirmative and explicit consent to data-sharing. I am not a lawyer so I'm happy to be corrected by someone who has more regulatory knowledge here, but I am reasonably certain this company would not be allowed to operate this way in Europe.
They would continue to ignore the law. I have seen the forced "consent" buttons countless times.