> Consider that should anything ever happen to the sites they scrape, suddenly they become super valuable to the rest of us.
That may well be true, but that value doesn't mean anyone should just be able to take that value from the company that put up the effort and investment to collect the data, and turn around an use it for their own profit. Nor does it mean that a company shouldn't be able to serve the data to whomever it wants and/or restrict access from whomever it wants. Value to the consumer is still not a reason to compel private companies to offer public services. It would be valuable to both of us if Google gave us free money, but no court is going to compel them to do so just because of the potential value to you and me.
It seems bad, btw, if we choose to rely on private companies to keep the only backups of our personal data. If a site going down has a negative effect on my life, and takes down data with it that I need, it might be an indication that I shouldn't have kept my data there.
Also true that decentralized information is not a bad thing, as a generic ideal or a data backup plan. But for a business, decentralization in this context means loss of profit, as well as possibly theft, cheating, and copyright violation.
Also, the increased value that comes from a company folding will be used against you by these private, for profit scrapers. They can and will hold their copy ransom for more money, if possible.
> Arguably, if they do a better job getting that information in results to people who need it in search, they may be performing a service there as well. (A lot of decently informative sites have absolutely awful search/visibility.)
What is the argument in favor of this being legal? It is currently not legal, and the law currently does not give any credit for 'doing it better'. Why should it?
It seems like a really dangerous precedent to interpret "unauthorized access" in CFAA to mean accessing a computer that is made available publicly without any form of access control when the owner doesn't want you to access it instead of meaning that you subverted some form of access control to access the computer.
I'd argue if the data is being made publicly available (particularly in the case of LinkedIn where we are choosing to make our own data publicly available), it is being made publicly available, and anyone should be able to take and use that data. Our data shouldn't be what a corporation's profit (or loss of profit) is based on to begin with.
> if the data is being made publicly available ... anyone should be able to take and use that data
It isn't being made publicly available in that sense. LinkedIn only offers the data to site visitors (unregistered users) under the guise of a license.
> we are choosing to make our own data publicly available
This isn't true. Putting data on LinkedIn is not making it publicly available, it's sharing a copy of your data with LinkedIn, and allowing them to do whatever they want with it. Those are the terms you agree to when you register.
> Our data shouldn't be what a corporation's profit (or loss of profit) is based on to begin with.
I agree, in an ideal world, but LinkedIn does profit on your data (as do Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc.). And we are willingly sharing our data with them and allowing this to happen. There are all kinds of crappy trends with data and privacy happening, and lots of people raising red flags. Your choice is to not use those services. If you don't want LinkedIn to use your data for their profit, then don't share your data with LinkedIn. If you share your data with LinkedIn, then LinkedIn now has the right to use your data to their own advantage.
That may well be true, but that value doesn't mean anyone should just be able to take that value from the company that put up the effort and investment to collect the data, and turn around an use it for their own profit. Nor does it mean that a company shouldn't be able to serve the data to whomever it wants and/or restrict access from whomever it wants. Value to the consumer is still not a reason to compel private companies to offer public services. It would be valuable to both of us if Google gave us free money, but no court is going to compel them to do so just because of the potential value to you and me.
It seems bad, btw, if we choose to rely on private companies to keep the only backups of our personal data. If a site going down has a negative effect on my life, and takes down data with it that I need, it might be an indication that I shouldn't have kept my data there.
Also true that decentralized information is not a bad thing, as a generic ideal or a data backup plan. But for a business, decentralization in this context means loss of profit, as well as possibly theft, cheating, and copyright violation.
Also, the increased value that comes from a company folding will be used against you by these private, for profit scrapers. They can and will hold their copy ransom for more money, if possible.
> Arguably, if they do a better job getting that information in results to people who need it in search, they may be performing a service there as well. (A lot of decently informative sites have absolutely awful search/visibility.)
What is the argument in favor of this being legal? It is currently not legal, and the law currently does not give any credit for 'doing it better'. Why should it?