[phs318u]

I’m a very active user of LinkedIn, effectively cultivating my “professional brand” on it. I’ve been contracting for years and use my network to find gigs. While I don’t have an issue with the business that HiQ are in (informing businesses of employee flight risk), I do believe there’s a qualitative difference between data that I publish for consumption by human eyeballs for free (a use of my data that I’ve authorised), and someone harvesting such data and en-mass for commercial purposes that I have not authorised. HiQ have not asked for my permission to use my data, they have not made any commitments about how they will use and not use my data. Given that they have access to my contact details (even via LI itself), they are capable of contacting me to request permission to use my data.

[paxys]

The difference isn't as clear as you are making it out to be.

If you have a public LinkedIn profile, should an employer be able to look at it without your explicit consent and reach out to you for job opportunities (or disqualify you from one)?

Should the employer be able to pay someone else (say a recruiting agency) to look at LinkedIn profiles on their behalf?

Should the recruiting agency be able to use automated tools (which scrape public profiles) that make things easier for them?

[CosmicShadow]

What HiQ did was scrape public data, so if you have your LI profile set to public, then anyone can access it and do what they will with it, just like if you posted a print out of it on a bulletin board in a mall. It's in the open and is free game for whtever. You can make your entire profile or just aspects of it private, meaning people need to login to LI to see your stuff, which then protects you under the TOS.

I think profiles were default public so you could be found on Google and for SEO purposes for both you and LI.

You'd be hard pressed to find a public profile accessible anymore on LI anyway, even with public settings, you'll hit an authwall 9 out of 10 times.

[phs318u]

I understand what HiQ have done. I'm saying I believe there's a material difference between public data for consumption by individual human beings, and systematic commercial harvesting. I appreciate that in the US, there may be no legal distinction between types of consumption of public data. Public data is public. However, I'm arguing that any commercial use or of my data beyond fair-use, should require my permission and an explanation of how my data will be stored and treated, so that I can be assured that my rights (over further unauthorised use) are preserved.

EDIT: It occurs to me that HiQ's success over LinkedIn does not necessarily imply they would be successful against actual LI users in a GDPR-like jurisdiction. Also, what if LI turned around and allowed each user to specify a style of CC license under which their specific data is published (by LI on behalf of the user). If I specified a non-commercial license variant, would that disallow HiQ's actions (without seeking permission)?

[CosmicShadow]

I can't say I know much about licensing and/or GDPR stuff, all I know is that if it's public, I don't have to agree to anything and I can do whatever I want, which is great for me and my business. From the other side, yes it sucks that people can take my stuff and profit from me and there is nothing I can do about it and no way to enforce it and I probably don't even know it's happening. (sounds like ad tracking!)

The way things work in North America at least to my understanding is that it doesn't matter what license you use, I don't have to agree to it to scrape it and use it if there is no click wrapper. I guess if you caught me explicitly using it in a certain way, I could get in trouble, but that is not easy. What you propose sounds reasonable, but I don't know how it would be enforced or if it would still stop people. I'm owed 30k in consulting wages and I can't even make it worth my while to pursue that from a legal standpoint, let alone try and sue some unknown and/or potentially massive company or scattered random ghosts across the interwebs.