LinkedIn wins court order blocking mass scraping of user data
3 hours ago
- A California federal judge finalized a deal requiring ProAPIs and Netswift to stop mass scraping of LinkedIn user data, including selling, transferring, and accessing via fake accounts, and to delete previously scraped data.
- LinkedIn's litigation head Sarah Wight hailed the outcome as a victory, emphasizing that user profiles are meant for the professional community, not for unauthorized scraping.
- LinkedIn's complaint alleged the companies used millions of bogus accounts to constantly scrape member, company, and school information, as well as reactions, comments, and posts.
- The settlement includes a consent judgment where ProAPIs stated it does not offer scraping tools and agreed to cease scraping LinkedIn permanently.
- This case is part of LinkedIn's ongoing legal battles against data scraping, including a previous win against a firm distributing a browser extension for scraping without consent.