Do you also think people have a right to record movies they watch in the theater?
I think people are free to run whatever extensions they want in their browser. I think companies are also free to tell people they aren't welcome if they're going to use that extension.
Why should a company like linkedin be FORCED to serve anyone? It's not a public service, they aren't a government entity, you have no right to their service.
Or a particular browser. Or a specific operating system. Or the wrong brand of device.
You can probably see where I'm going with that, but in case it's not perfectly clear, I'm trying to say that a company might want to dictate a lot more than just what extension you're using in a browser. Not everyone is going to agree that they are right to do that.
Bear in mind that there's more to consider here than the legality of what they're doing. The openness of the Internet, the interoperability of different operating systems and devices over a particular somewhat-standardized protocol -- these aspects aren't regulated by a law, but they're still important. I'm one of those people who remember the Browser Wars and I don't remember them fondly.
Of course, it's not just about technical aspects, either. There's the whole grey area of whether it's okay for LinkedIn to metaphorically rifle through our proverbial pockets, looking for stuff they don't like and don't want to admit on their virtual premises.
So no, I wouldn't agree that things are as clear cut as you present them.
Of course where to draw the lines is important and up for debate
They are not free to snoop into information that isn't standard or reasonable. But if they aren't running spyware on my computer[2], they can decide whatever they want with the information my browser send to them.
[1] Do they? I'm not sure wether Linked-in has a monopoly as middleman in job searchers.
[2] How does invasive Javascript stands here? I'm inclined to consider that it's my browser's job to protect me, not theirs. But if they do some very unreasonable things, the blame is on them again.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16148250/microsoft-linked...
AFAIK the current state of things is that LinkedIn is welcome to try and stop people from scraping the site, but it can't criminally charge them or try to legally block them from the service. Roughly the same situation as adblockers -- you can detect them and stick banners all over the place, but you can't outright bar someone from running uBlock Origin on your domain.
Please note that I am not a lawyer.
Nope, but I'd sure be upset if I caught movie theater employees surreptitiously reaching into my pockets to check for cameras.
https://torrentfreak.com/movie-spy-cameras-attack-the-dying-...
They also apparently use the data to gauge emotional response to movie scenes!
> Why should a company like linkedin be FORCED to serve anyone?
Companies are routinely forced to serve people per the ADA and CRA. There are various rationales for them; I favor them because they cause a degree of integration that helps to disrupt identity politics.
I think, beyond that, if a company has clearly advertised terms of service and sticks to them (it should be possible to sue a company for violating its stated policies) then they should be able to reject customers if they want. Especially, it's often a reasonable engineering/business tradeoff to not support a customer over delivering a buggy product.
The difference in this analogy is that films are fully the IP of the production company but LI sells data that they don't explicitly own.
What are you talking about? Anything you post on LinkedIn is their property. You can't legally access anything on their site without agreeing to their policy. Did you not read the agreement when you signed up for the site?
https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement#rights
> As between you and LinkedIn, you own the content and information that you submit or post to the Services, and you are only granting LinkedIn and our affiliates the following non-exclusive license:
>You own all of the content, feedback, and personal information you provide to us, but you also grant us a non-exclusive license to it.
You can call it what you want, they have rights to use anything you post on their site as they see fit.
My point stands. They are selling your content without your explicit permission, and against their own terms of service unless you argue that people would agree to their data being sold to recruiters.
That's fine and they're able to do so. But don't say it's also ethical for them to aggressively prevent other services from doing that without paying them.
I can just keep quoting it or you can just admit you're wrong:
>We will get your consent if we want to give others the right to publish your content beyond the Services. However, if you choose to share your post as "public", we will enable a feature that allows other Members to embed that public post onto third-party services, and we enable search engines to make that public content findable though their services.
>You and LinkedIn agree that we may access, store, process and use any information and personal data that you provide in accordance with the terms of the Privacy Policy and your choices (including settings).
Literally says right there that they're only getting your permission if they share your content outside of "Services" - meaning outside of the Linkedin Platform. Those recruiters are using the service.
>Services
>This Contract applies to LinkedIn.com, LinkedIn-branded apps, Slideshare, LinkedIn Learning and other LinkedIn-related sites, apps, communications and other services that state that they are offered under this Contract (“Services”), including the offsite collection of data for those Services, such as our ads and the “Apply with LinkedIn” and “Share with LinkedIn” plugins. Registered users of our Services are “Members” and unregistered users are “Visitors”. This Contract applies to both Members and Visitors.
Where is the line?
Also, companies are forced to serve people all the time. That was a large part of the fight for civil rights. At some level we do have a right to the service of a private company.
Sure, but that doesn't make it not wrong. Companies are made of people. Forcing people to do something against their will is aggression; if they haven't started it then it's morally wrong.
"Is that plugin installed" is also a terrible "protection" against scraping.
Looking for access patterns that are typical for automated usage are a much better answer - and not publicly showing email addresses to everyone, of course.
But I doubt that's why they're doing this.
With all that said, I also think people have a right to use the extensions they want to scrape or block content on sites they visit, so catch 22 I guess.
It's worth thinking of this from both angles before getting angry at LinkedIn, or the author of this post :)