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.S. appeals court has ruled for the second time.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 18 reaffirmed its 2019 decision that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a federal anti-hacking law that prohibits unauthorized access to computer systems, does not apply to websites that are open to the public.
Specifically, the court ruled in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp that global professional networking site LinkedIn could not block San Francisco-based data analytics firm hiQ Labs from accessing publicly visible LinkedIn member profiles in order to analyze and prepare employee attrition reports.
The ruling is the latest in a long-running legal battle going back to 2017 when LinkedIn sent hiQ a cease-and-desist letter to prevent it from accessing the site, arguing that scraping data would violate users' privacy and the terms of the site. LinkedIn has previously sought to stop other companies from mining data from its site.
"We're disappointed in the court's decision," said LinkedIn spokesperson Greg Snapper in a statement. "On LinkedIn, our members trust us with their information, which is why we prohibit unauthorized scraping on our platform. When your data is taken without permission and used in ways you haven't agreed to, that's not okay."
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