Linkedin scraping case. Limits: LinkedIn Limits ~50 profiles / day per user; blocks & CAPTCHAs make scraping at scale unrealistic. In a case involving LinkedIn, a federal appeals court reaffirmed Monday that web scraping likely doesn’t violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The landmark web scraping case was bounced back to the Ninth Circuit by the U. Dec 8, 2022 · On December 6, 2022, the parties in the long-running litigation between now-defunct data analytics company hiQ Labs, Inc. In this blog, we explore top Food Scraping API use cases across industries, backed by practical case studies and real-world business impact. As explained by LinkedIn’s Chief Legal Counsel Sarah Wight: The case is widely viewed as potentially precedent-setting for how “fair use” applies to generative AI. It determined that LinkedIn may enforce its User Agreement against data scraping after all. In late 2022, the dispute concluded with a settlement where hiQ agreed to pay LinkedIn $500,000 and was permanently enjoined from scraping its data, with the court affirming that hiQ had breached LinkedIn’s user agreement. , LinkedIn argued that hiQ Labs’ scraping activities violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Digital Millennium A quick summary of the case - back in 2017, LinkedIn sought to cut off hiQ Labs from its service after discovering that hiQ had been scraping LinkedIn user data, harvesting the personal information on publicly available profiles of LinkedIn users in order to build its own recruitment information service. hiQ’ case and why many questions surrounding data scraping and what remedies are available to website owners remain unanswered. In every case, the regulators scrutinized not just what data was collected but how the collection infrastructure was sourced and operated. We want to be clear that this is not a data breach and no private LinkedIn member data was exposed. A court has ruled that it's legal to scrape publicly available data from LinkedIn, despite the company's claims that this violates user privacy. law, and GDPR/CCPA rules affect risk—and how to stay safe. ” At issue was whether, once hiQ received LinkedIn’s cease-and-desist letter, any further scraping and use of LinkedIn’s data was “without authorization” within the meaning of the CFAA. 3d 985 (9th Cir. They say they hope the Supreme Court’s intervention in a LinkedIn data- scraping case will provide some needed clarity to some questions associated with this practice. Wondering if LinkedIn scraping is still worth it? Get the latest strategies for scraping data safely and effectively without risking your account. We focus on critical business outcomes: accelerating time-to-insight, reducing operational costs, and unlocking new market opportunities. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is currently hearing oral argument in a case with important implications for businesses that harvest data or have their data harvested. LinkedIn also ended up on the winning side of a similar data-scraping lawsuit against Singapore-based company Mantheos and its founders earlier this year. Learn about Scrupp! Mining publicly accessible online data—a tactic used by data aggregators to compile information and by sourcers to unearth candidate leads—is legal, a U. Clearview’s business, which is scraping billions of publicly posted images to build a facial recognition database, directly engages biometric privacy, which many jurisdictions (especially Europe The case eventually shifted to focus on LinkedIn’s breach of contract claims. LinkedIn Corp. appeals court has ruled for the But looking back, it should be noted that this case produced the most emphatic, pro-scraping circuit court decision in technology law history when the Ninth Circuit found that hiQ “raised at least serious questions” that its scraping of public LinkedIn member profile data, even after having had its access revoked and blocked by LinkedIn, is LinkedIn data scraping was never this easy. ” Case Study 1: Electronics Retailer Boosts Margins by 18% A mid-sized electronics retailer integrated a real-time ecommerce scraping API to monitor 250 competitor SKUs across Amazon and Walmart. HiQ responded by filing a lawsuit seeking a declaration that it was not violating any law and an injunction preventing LinkedIn for blocking its access to users’ data. granting certiorari, vacating the Ninth Circuit’s previous judgment, and remanding the case for additional consideration in light of the high court’s ruling in Van Buren v. hiQ Labs, Inc. This provides legal clarity for data analytics companies, academic researchers, and journalists who rely on collecting public data. We take a look at the ‘LinkedIn vs. The case has gone back and forth ever since, and has become a precedent-setting example for data scraping, and what can be done, legally, with publicly available information online. In the interest of this article, the case of Professional Social Network against web scraping wasn’t strong. and its impact on web scraping. LinkedIn demanded in 2017 that hiQ cease and desist from scraping LinkedIn data. Leading a Progress Unified by Data | Datamam collaborates with forward-thinking executives - CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, and Heads of Data - to transform raw, fragmented data into AI-ready intelligence. It seems like the perfect time to review what has been an interesting case related to data scraping, the scope of user data collection and its subsequent sale. Datamam | 9,494 followers on LinkedIn. In the well-known case of LinkedIn Corporation v. By delivering structured LinkedIn has successfully resolved its lawsuit against Proxycurl, addressing allegations of unauthorized data scraping, fraud, and trademark misuse. The California federal The case law is still unsettled, but some rules of thumb are starting to emerge, says Alex Reese is a partner and Raven Quesenberry of Farella Braun + Martel. The panel concluded that to scrape LinkedIn data, hiQ needed to access LinkedIn servers, which were “protected computers. The U. The scraped data contains LinkedIn Files Petition to the Supreme Court in HiQ Web Scraping Case by: Jeffrey D. S. Let’s Clear It Up First: Is It Legal? Scraping data from LinkedIn — is it along with the law or not? LinkedIn is a business-focused social networking platform that has grown to be a vital LinkedIn that web scraping doesn't qualify as accessing a protected computer without authorization. Members trust What Recent Rulings in 'hiQ v. Web scraping Web scraping, web harvesting, or web data extraction is data scraping used for extracting data from websites. After six years of litigation, LinkedIn Corp. v. LinkedIn has taken actions to terminate accounts suspected of web scraping however data analytics firm HiQ said the data was fair game for scraping. The law surrounding using automated tools to “scrape” data from others’ websites has been somewhat inconsistent, according to Sheppard Mullin’s IP attorneys James Gatto and Pouneh Almasi. and hiQ Labs, Inc. The Supreme Court has given LinkedIn another chance to stop a rival company from scraping personal information from users’ public profiles, a practice LinkedIn says should be illegal but one In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll dive into the world of LinkedIn data scraping, exploring the legality of this practice, common use cases, and expert tips for scraping LinkedIn effectively and ethically. LinkedIn scraping consent GDPR: Learn when public profile extraction needs consent, how Terms, U. And in the latest ruling, the court has ruled in favor of LinkedIn. This news follows last month’s summary Unauthorized scraping is against our policies and every day teams at LinkedIn are working hard to keep our members and their information safe. 3 days ago · Is LinkedIn scraping legal in 2026? Learn criminal vs contract vs privacy risks, hiQ v. Learn how you can scrape LinkedIn public data for your specific business needs, Identifying businesses to invest in and talent discovery. Aug 13, 2024 · hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn, and safer automation to avoid restrictions. Dec 22, 2022 · LinkedIn obtained a permanent injunction on Dec. It subsequently vacated the Ninth Circuit 2019 opinion and remande. Learn how the case sets legal precedents for extracting publicly available data. ’s petition for certiorari filed in the hiQ web scraping case. On June 14, the United States Supreme Court issued a summary disposition in hiQ Labs, Inc. But looking back, it should be noted that this case produced the most emphatic, pro-scraping circuit court decision in technology law history when the Ninth Circuit found that hiQ “raised at least serious questions” that its scraping of public LinkedIn member profile data, even after having had its access revoked and blocked by LinkedIn, is Why it matters: In remanding the case between LinkedIn and hiQ back for further proceedings, the Supreme Court will give Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, another chance to make the case that bulk collection of even publicly available data threatens individual privacy. You can learn more here in Sarah Wight’s post, LinkedIn’s VP of Legal. An appeals court Monday ruled in favor of hiQ Labs, a company that automatically gathers data from LinkedIn profiles, despite LinkedIn’s claims that this practice endangers user privacy. France's CNIL fined KASPR €200,000 for scraping LinkedIn profiles. The case began in California in 2017 when HiQ, an employment analytics firm, filed a lawsuit challenging LinkedIn's legal and technical efforts to block HiQ from copying public profile data from LinkedIn users. The order pointed out that scraping publicly available data is Following up on our April 27, 2022 post, Data Scraping Deemed Legal in Certain Circumstances, the most significant data scraping lawsuit has finally come to an end. (“LinkedIn”) filed a Stipulation and Jul 28, 2025 · Proxycurl offered data tools for HR professionals, and included LinkedIn email scraping and profile search among its various offerings. 2019), was a United States Ninth Circuit case about web scraping. Neuburger, Proskauer Rose LLP - New Media and Technology Law Blog Thursday, March 12, 2020 Print Mail Download />i The original case was brought in California federal district court in 2017 by a company (hiQ) trying to protect its business of using publicly posted user data on LinkedIn. 6 in its six-year-old lawsuit against data scraping company hiQ Labs, which LinkedIn quickly cheered as a “final, decisive victory” that established an “important legal precedent. Whilst the scraping did not constitute a data breach nor did it access any personal data not intended to be publicly accessible, the data was still monetised and later broadly circulated in hacking circles. O) LinkedIn Corp another chance to try to stop rival hiQ Labs Inc from harvesting personal data from the professional networking Discover the legality of LinkedIn scraping, key challenges, and how to navigate legalities while scraping data ethically. LinkedIn has lost its latest appeal in an ongoing battle against data scraping, with the court ruling going against the platform. AI data scraping vs. Learn how to scrape data from 9 LinkedIn data points easily with scrapers and launch outreach strategies. The latest ruling in a high-profile case brought by LinkedIn case reaffirms that "hacking" and "scraping" aren't the same thing. Supreme Court on Monday gave Microsoft Corp's (MSFT. reached a confidential settlement agreement and filed a stipulation and proposed consent judgment (stipulation) with the California district court on December 6, 2022 This case has been dragging on for almost five years. [1] Web scraping software may directly access the World Wide Web using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol or a web browser. Jul 20, 2025 · LinkedIn case established a precedent confirming that the anti-hacking law cannot be used to stop the scraping of data that a website makes openly available. traditional web scraping How AI data scraping works (core components and workflow) Key use cases of AI data scraping in 2025–2026 Ethical, legal, and privacy challenges of AI data scraping Regulation and court cases shaping AI data scraping Risks, limitations, and technical challenges Best practices for responsible AI The fact that the Court refused to grant the motion for summary judgement in this case meant that both hiQ and Professional Social Network did not have a very strong case. What Does It Mean to Scrape LinkedIn Data? Data scraping refers to the automated or semi-automated extraction of publicly available information from websites. (“hiQ”) and LinkedIn Corp. , 938 F. Producers take a calculated risk they won't be sued, and content creators know there is a cost involved in suing, so they won't unless they think they have a strong case that'll be worth it. United States. LinkedIn and hiQ Labs agreed to a consent judgment and permanent injunction to resolve all data scraping related claims after six years of litigation. Safely extract data and avoid unauthorized scraping. hiQ is a small data analytics company that used automated bots to scrape information from public LinkedIn profiles. Our initial investigation has found that this data was scraped from LinkedIn and other various websites and includes the same data reported earlier this year in our April 2021 scraping update. Supreme Court. 1 The Van Buren ruling was issued less than two weeks ago and limited the reach of the Computer LinkedIn data-scraping case highlights calls for SCOTUS review of computer fraud law By Alison Frankel August 15, 20171:06 PM PDTUpdated August 15, 2017 Legality: LinkedIn bans scraping, but the CFAA allows scraping of public data (the hiQ case shows nuance). Master LinkedIn scraping: legality, best practices, and ethical methods. The ruling by the US Court of Appeals Our teams have investigated a set of alleged LinkedIn data that has been posted for sale. On LinkedIn, this includes profile details like name, job title, company, location, and industry—all of which are visible to logged-in users under normal browsing conditions. Where does the line between public and private data lies? Historically, scraping case law has offered website owners some degree of protection as to both types of spaces, recognizing that owners often take steps to protect even public spaces from scraping — for instance, by adopting terms-of-use provisions that prohibit automated access or by blocking requests from IP addresses known to be Supreme Court granted LinkedIn Corp. LinkedIn' and Other Cases Say About the Legality of Data Scraping Top Tools to Scrape LinkedIn Data In regard to LinkedIn scraping, different tools and services have differing advantages based on your use case. In April 2021, we investigated a set of data that was aggregated from various sources, including Is LinkedIn scraping legal? Learn about the laws, lawsuits, and best practices for scraping LinkedIn data to stay compliant in 2024 In 2017, LinkedIn sent a cease-and-desist letter to hiQ asserting that hiQ’s use of scraping bots violated LinkedIn’s User Agreement and the CFAA, among other laws. LinkedIn obtained a permanent LinkedIn and hiQ Labs agreed to a consent judgment and permanent injunction to resolve all data scraping related claims after six years of litigation. Which LinkedIn, understandably, took exception to, and back in January, LinkedIn filed a federal lawsuit against the app for violations of its user agreement. During the first half of 2021, LinkedIn was targeted by attackers who scraped data from hundreds of millions of public profiles and later sold them online. When anyone tries to take member data and use it for purposes LinkedIn and our members haven’t agreed to, we work to stop them and hold them accountable. 9os3j, 1hlc, 7611, 5pxxr, jy7sb, xsise, iahu, rm8e, t0v4ms, ylk1f,