Business

LinkedIn loses appeal in suit against data scraping startup

Posted September 09, 2019 7:00 am

The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court has affirmed the right of a startup company to scrape people's profiles on networking service LinkedIn for data.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Michigan upheld a previous ruling Monday siding with hiQ Labs, a San Francisco company that analyzes workforce data scraped from public profiles.

LinkedIn invoked a federal anti-hacking law in telling hiQ to stop. LinkedIn also installed technical blocks to prevent hiQ from accessing otherwise publicly available information on LinkedIn users. A 2017 ruling ordered LinkedIn to stop blocking the startup. LinkedIn appealed.

LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft Corp., says it is disappointed in the decision and evaluating options for an appeal. HiQ did not immediately respond for a message for comment Monday.

Article Comments

Article Categories
Business Content Providers Nation and World News

Article Comments

Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.