IIUC that was for illegally downloading ebooks and other media -- it had nothing to do with training per se. Scraping publicly accessible data is generally legal, although Microsoft/LinkedIn clearly think they have enough of a leg to stand on to at least litigate this.
Not an expert but there was a court ruling in the US I think last year where circumventing login protection through bot operated accounts when the login is intended for human use was ruled as violation of CFAA. The current state of litigation in the US seems to be that scraping public facing data/websites has been considered as permissible by the courts but data behind a login intended for humans is not. I think there's still a split between the circuits, so this will go through some years of appeal yet.
A product called "Linkedin Intro" that was killed within 6 months due to backlash and significant security flaws. It was somehow creating a reverse imap proxy to intercept your email traffic, and "decorate" emails with someone's linkedin profile.
I don't recall all of the specific details, but I just remember reading about it at the time and how they bypassed some of iOS security protections to do it. Adn that they didn't get perma-banned from the various app stores back then is beyond me. It's a huge part of why I avoid installing apps on my phone in general.
I don't recall all of the specific details, but I just remember reading about it at the time and how they bypassed some of iOS security protections to do it. Adn that they didn't get perma-banned from the various app stores back then is beyond me. It's a huge part of why I avoid installing apps on my phone in general.
I don't recall all of the specific details, but I just remember reading about it at the time and how they bypassed some of iOS security protections to do it. Adn that they didn't get perma-banned from the various app stores back then is beyond me. It's a huge part of why I avoid installing apps on my phone in general.
If they really want to put a dent into this, go after the biggest players scraping LinkedIn: PeopleDataLabs and Apollo.io (and no, taking down their company page does not count)
The dispute was settled because Pear agreed to slightly alter its logo, instead of continuing full litigation (maybe because of resources / dollars it would consume)
Or, go after the small fish who can’t afford to have a biglaw team on retainer, bulldoze them to get a legal precedent set, and then use the example to extract concessions from the bigger players.
Because they either have side deals with the big names, or they want to set precedent for going after them.
Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist here, but my bet is on having a deal with the big players, we allow you to scrape us (or we give you a pipe you can consume out of), and you pay us in monetary or non-monetary terms; like how many business exchanges work
I've heard a lot of people cite this case as proof that scraping is legal, but it seems like the decision kept going back and forth in appeals, and I never understood what precedent it set, if any, around the legality of scraping.
This one seems different from the (correct) ruling in favor in hiQ Labs, where the courts were quite clear that scraping the public Internet was completely legal.
This is a case of a company creating millions of fake user accounts, so they’re behind the login wall and not on the public side of the Internet anymore. At least, that’s how I’m reading this.
Readit News
I somehow want both parties to lose.
Claude also had to a pay almost 1.5b for illegally training / scrapping.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/05/business/anthropic-ai-settlem...
It was ~12 years ago, so there's not much left around, but here is an engineering blog post from Linkedin talking about how they architected it https://engineering.linkedin.com/mobile/linkedin-intro-doing...
I don't recall all of the specific details, but I just remember reading about it at the time and how they bypassed some of iOS security protections to do it. Adn that they didn't get perma-banned from the various app stores back then is beyond me. It's a huge part of why I avoid installing apps on my phone in general.
I don't recall all of the specific details, but I just remember reading about it at the time and how they bypassed some of iOS security protections to do it. Adn that they didn't get perma-banned from the various app stores back then is beyond me. It's a huge part of why I avoid installing apps on my phone in general.
I don't recall all of the specific details, but I just remember reading about it at the time and how they bypassed some of iOS security protections to do it. Adn that they didn't get perma-banned from the various app stores back then is beyond me. It's a huge part of why I avoid installing apps on my phone in general.
If they really want to put a dent into this, go after the biggest players scraping LinkedIn: PeopleDataLabs and Apollo.io (and no, taking down their company page does not count)
legal precedence => Surer victory in the future for similar lawsuits
https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/apple-sues-small-...
The dispute was settled because Pear agreed to slightly alter its logo, instead of continuing full litigation (maybe because of resources / dollars it would consume)
https://www.fbm.com/publications/what-recent-rulings-in-hiq-...
If they settle, or the case got dismissed -- no precedent is set.
And there's always a bigger fish.
Dead Comment
Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist here, but my bet is on having a deal with the big players, we allow you to scrape us (or we give you a pipe you can consume out of), and you pay us in monetary or non-monetary terms; like how many business exchanges work
If you want to make a big deal about this, tell us you at least sent a letter to the big players too. Otherwise, dont put up such a huge show
Prediction: this will be a very much pay to play market
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.45...
I've heard a lot of people cite this case as proof that scraping is legal, but it seems like the decision kept going back and forth in appeals, and I never understood what precedent it set, if any, around the legality of scraping.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HiQ_Labs_v._LinkedIn
This is a case of a company creating millions of fake user accounts, so they’re behind the login wall and not on the public side of the Internet anymore. At least, that’s how I’m reading this.