Appeals court upholds ruling that permits public data to be scraped from LinkedIn profiles

Microsoft has lost an appeal aimed at preventing companies from scraping public data from LinkedIn profiles. Back in 2017, Microsoft sought to block hiQ Labs Inc from using bots to gather information from profiles which it then used to help employers predict if or when people will quit their jobs. At the time, a court ruled that Microsoft could not block hiQ Labs from scraping data in this way; now an appeal court has upheld the original decision. The case was heard in the US Circuit Court of Appeals, and in a 3-0 decision it was ruled that there was… [Continue Reading]