Data Privacy: The Real Issue in the LinkedIn v. hiQ Ruling

The ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp affirmed that the automated scraping of publicly accessible data likely does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Call this a true David (hiQ) vs. Goliath (LinkedIn) story. The decision upholds the right to innovate and develop new ways of gaining analytical insights. While hiQ may be one small private company with 12.4M in estimated funding, it isone of many businesses whose operational model is based on using publicly accessible data rather than collecting their own user data as Intellectual Property.