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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed data analytics company hiQ Labs Inc.’s ability to scrape publicly available data from LinkedIn’s platform despite the social media company’s claim that the data collected violated federal hacking laws.  The appeals court previously upheld hiQ Labs’ preliminary injunction prohibiting LinkedIn from denying the data company access to publicly available profiles in September 2019. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the panel’s judgment and remanded for consideration in light of its decision in Van Buren v. U.S. regarding the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Want to continue reading?Become an ALM Digital Reader for Free! Benefits of a Digital Membership Free access to 1 article* every 30 days Access to the entire ALM network of websites Unlimited access to the ALM suite of newsletters Build custom alerts on any search topic of your choosing Search by a wide range of topics Already have an account? Sign In Now *May exclude premium content You Might Like 7 minute read 11 minute read 6 minute read 4 minute read Trending Stories Mentioned in a Law.com story? License our industry-leading legal content to extend your thought leadership and build your brand. Featured Firms Law Offices of Gary…

On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Ninth Circuit earlier this week again affirmed the lower court’s order preliminarily enjoining LinkedIn Corp. (“LinkedIn”) from blocking data analytics company hiQ Labs, Inc.’s (“hiQ”) access to publicly available LinkedIn member profiles. (hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., No. 17-16783 (9th Cir. Apr. 18, 2022)) (“hiQ II”). In what might be considered an emphatic, pro-scraping decision (even more so than its first, now-vacated 2019 decision), the appeals court 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 lawful under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The panel concluded that the reasoning of last year’s Supreme Court decision in Van Buren v. U.S., which interpreted the “exceeds authorized access” provision of the CFAA, reinforced the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation that the concept of “without authorization” under the CFAA does not apply to public websites. Thus, while the law relating to screen scraping remains unclear in many respects – particularly as scraping technology and the applied uses of public website data continue to evolve – this important new decision by the Ninth Circuit…

In a much-anticipated ruling this week addressing the confluence of website scraping and computer hacking law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit became the latest federal court to limit the reach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). In hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn, the Ninth Circuit held, for a second time, that the automated capture of data from the publicly accessible pages of websites (that do not require the creation of an account for access) does not violate the CFAA’s prohibition on accessing a computer “without authorization.” The circuit court’s decision closely tracks the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Van Buren v. United States (2021), which narrowly interpreted the correlated “exceeds authorized access” provision of the CFAA. HiQ, like Van Buren before it, reads the CFAA to create a bright-line “gates-up-or-down inquiry.” Liability turns on whether there was an intrusion into a protected system, not whether data access amounted to a technical violation of the data holder’s terms of service. The decision creates breathing room for companies that mine public data for commercial use, just as state and federal regulators are ramping up data privacy protections. A Long and Twisting Road HiQ is a data…

On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed a California district court’s order preliminarily enjoining LinkedIn from denying hiQ Labs, a data analytics company, access to LinkedIn’s publicly available member profiles. The Ninth Circuit’s decision reaffirms its previous decision, after the Supreme Court remanded the case for further consideration in light of Van Buren v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1648 (2021).  Likelihood of Success on CFAA Claim. The “pivotal” question for the Ninth Circuit was whether hiQ’s continued scraping and use of LinkedIn’s data, after a cease-and-desist letter, was “without authorization” within the meaning of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”). The Ninth Circuit found that a plain reading of the CFAA language forbidding “access without authorization” implies a baseline in which permission to access is ordinarily required and distinguished this from the LinkedIn scenario, in which the default is free access without authorization “to anyone with a web browser.”  The Ninth Circuit relied on the legislative history of the CFAA to confirm its plain reading of the statute. Specifically, the court cited the 1984 House Report’s comparison of section 1030 of the CFAA to criminal “breaking and entering,”…

LinkedIn most likely to be imitated in phishing attempts in Q1: Report New Delhi, April 19 (IANS) Professional networking platform LinkedIn has ranked first in the list of brands most likely to be imitated in phishing attempts in the first quarter of 2022, a report said on Tuesday. According to cybersecurity firm Check Point, the report highlighted the brands that hackers most often imitated in the first three months of this year, in order to lure people into giving up their personal data. “These phishing attempts are attacks of opportunity, plain and simple. Criminal groups orchestrate these phishing attempts on a grand scale, with a view to getting as many people to part with their personal data as possible,” Omer Dembinsky, Data Research Group Manager at Check Point Software, said in a statement. “Some attacks will attempt to gain leverage over individuals or steal their information, such as those we are seeing with LinkedIn. Others will be attempts to deploy malware on company networks, such as the fake emails containing spoof carrier documents that we are seeing with the likes of Maersk. If there was ever any doubt that social media would become one of the most heavily targeted sectors by…

LinkedIn has published its 2022 listing of the top companies to work for, based on a range of factors, including ability to advance, gender diversity, skills growth, and more. The data is primarily based on LinkedIn listings – so when an employee adds a new skill to their profile, for example, that’s attributed to the company’s development systems. As explained by LinkedIn: “This year we’ve selected the top companies in 35 countries (up from 20 in 2021) across six continents. At a time when professionals everywhere are reconsidering where, when, and particularly why they work, the methodology for building the lists focuses on finding the best businesses for employees to grow their careers. And the timing is ideal as the current talent migration - the Great Reshuffle - presents companies with both a challenge and an opportunity.” Given the qualifiers for listing, most of the companies here are bigger, more well-resourced organizations, which is a little unfair to smaller businesses that could also be putting focus on the same things. But if you were looking to maximize your opportunities, these businesses, based on LinkedIn data at least, could offer some of the best career pathways. You can read more about LinkedIn’s Top…

LinkedIn was tied to more than half of all phishing-related attacks globally, according to a new story by Check Point. Pictured: The LinkedIn app logo is displayed on an iPhone on Aug. 3, 2016, in London. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)A study on Q1 brand phishing trends by Check Point research found that social media networks have now overtaken shipping, retail and technology as the most likely category targeted by criminal groups.Check Point said so far this year, LinkedIn has been tied to 52% of all phishing-related attacks globally, marking the first time LinkedIn has reached the top of the rankings.LinkedIn’s numbers represent a dramatic 44% increase from the previous quarter, when LinkedIn was in fifth position and related to only 8% of phishing attempts. Check Point said LinkedIn has now overtaken DHL as the most targeted brand, which has now fallen to second place and accounted for 14% of all phishing attempts during Q1.Along with LinkedIn, WhatsApp maintained its position in the Top 10, accounting for almost 1 in 20 phishing-related attacks worldwide. Big Tech companies Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft remained in the Top 10, as did shipping companies AliExpress, FedEx, and Maersk.Oliver Tavakoli, CTO at Vectra, said…

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Topline An appeals court Monday ruled that web scraping—or automatically extracting information from websites and storing it for later use—is legal, protecting a tool used by researchers but dealing a blow to Microsoft-owned social networking site LinkedIn, which claimed the practice endangers user privacy. LinkedIn has attempted to stop other companies from automatically harvesting data from its user ... profiles. getty Key Facts The U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals affirmed its 2019 preliminary injunction stopping LinkedIn from blocking data company hiQ Labs from accessing publicly visible LinkedIn member profiles. HiQ uses data scraped from public sections of LinkedIn to create reports for corporate customers, identifying which of their employees are most likely to quit and which are most likely to be targeted by recruiters. In a 2017 cease and desist letter to hiQ’s CEO, LinkedIn said it had implemented “technical measures” to prevent the company from accessing the site, and claimed using the social network without LinkedIn’s authorization would violate the 1986 Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which prohibits activity like hacking and cyberattacks. Additionally, LinkedIn told the court an injunction allowing hiQ to resume scraping would threaten users’ privacy and possibly damage the goodwill built up between…

LinkedIn, the vast online professional and career-development network, can’t prevent a San Francisco data analytics company from mining the network’s roster of members for information it can sell to job recruiters, a federal appeals court ruled Monday in a case that has already made one visit to the U.S. Supreme Court.The company, hiQ Labs, founded in 2012, uses bots — robotic software — to gather data such as work history and skills from the publicly available listings on LinkedIn, which has 810 million members, and then analyzes the information and markets it to clients. LinkedIn sent hiQ Labs a cease-and-desist order in 2017 seeking to halt the searches, saying they violated its own terms of access as well as federal and state privacy and technology laws. After U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed hiQ Labs to continue its work, the Supreme Court took up the case last June and told the appeals court to reconsider it in light of a recent decision by the high court defining the limits of access. On Monday, the appeals court said its conclusion was unchanged: The information hiQ “scrapes” from the LinkedIn network…