So technically, you can't say that the first part of the statement is false from the screenshot.
> LinkedIn rejected the request on the grounds that protecting that data took precedence.
Guess that implies that paying takes precedence on data protection
I think they should lose the case but I’m curious if anyone can think of a good argument for their side, at all (in the European context where there are data laws, “it’s their website they do what they want” is the conventional US perspective but I don’t really see what that leaves us to discuss).
Literally the comment I replied to.
This is an incredibly bold statement, and something I really cannot relate to having lived in Europe for over a decade.
It comes across as more of a knee-jerk reaction from someone who believes oversight or accountability of any kind is by definition a needless burden.
It's really hard to understand concepts when you're internationally masking and misleading yourself.
Obviously no one things "making life difficult is a worthy pursuit", but, doing the right thing sometimes is worth a bit of the difficulties it introduces, this is why you see moves like this.
You bet your ass I'm going to make your life difficult. If you want it to stop, you're the one with the ball on your side of the court, you know exactly what to do.
It's a very American concept, to believe you can just ignore systems and networks. The guy shitting in your yard every day doesn't go away just because you're not looking at him do it.
They're not at as much of a risk though, as it's much more difficult to begin a chat with a Tinder user than it is on Linked In. Knowing the profile ID or whatever won't help you, if you can't open their profile in-app and swipe right on it, you can't begin a conversation.
At the same time I wonder what happens when users realize everything they look at is now more visible than ever? People just make fake accounts for browsing?
Maybe it should be that way, but there's an interesting dynamic to "what you look at (even if not a full picture) is visible to some people".
Unlike physical goods where a higher price reflects higher production cost, SaaS companies have to engineer scarcity into a product that is naturally abundant.
In this LinkedIn example, they already collect the profile visitors for everyone. Instead, they spent additional engineering resources building the restriction layer and then charge the users to undo the sabotage.
LinkedIn shared a public profile a user filled out for the purposes of sharing.
Someone viewed the profile.
How exactly is it “personal data” who viewed the profile?
If I put my resume on my website, is my ISP required to tell me who visited my website? (The logs give technical data, but not the name of the person viewing.)
Not precisely a nice way to put it, but it seems consistent to me.
Data often pertains to multiple people (trivial case: direct messages between two users); the rights of GDPR apply to your data, regardless of whether it also pertains to multiple others, subject to some restrictions to safeguard the rights of others. Those legal restrictions clearly don't apply because you could pay to obtain that access.
LinkedIn would need to prove in court that the list of users who visited your profile is not your data.
Additionally, your profile is undisputably your data. Per article 15 of the GDPR, you have a right to access "the recipients or categories of recipient to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed, in particular recipients in third countries or international organisations".
Linkedin is recording every person who visits your profile and keeps that in your user records, and they are already selling it back to you. The argument is that you have a right to that data.
Linkedin is arguing that this data needs to be protected for the privacy of those visiting your profile and the argument is that if they really believed that, they wouldn't sell it back to you, compromising that privacy anyway.
That seems to violate the GDPR more than the current state, no? If I accidentally click on your profile you're entitled to my name and employer and that's your data now? Makes no sense, other than from a "GDPR good, US tech bad!" angle, I guess.
Linkedin is the best thing what happened for phishing since 4ever.
If you have a profile there, you're already lost. They gather your data and even network layout if you just open linkedin.
It would be an interesting angle of attack against classic surveillance, though. If there are any vendors that store the video in some centralized system, so you can request it all at once.
But, I think there will be some hurdles, this case specifically relies on the fact that LinkedIn clearly doesn’t believe there’s any reason to keep this data private (they sell users access to it, after all).
In commercial buildings the disclosure may hang on the wall besides main entrance.
Everything as designed.
if we assume there’s a directional graph with edges labeled as “visited”. what linkedin is offering is to traverse it backwards for a fee.
what they’re demanding is ludicrous. pure entitlement that would have horrible ramifications for all social media platforms.
should a gdpr export include who has unliked/unreposted your posts too? it definitely pertains to you.
The other important detail is that LinkedIn already has processed this data that definitely pertains to you, whether you paid for it or not, and are trying to sell it to you. In fact, to quote the article, LinkedIn's argument for not giving it to the user is "on the grounds that protecting that data took precedence". LinkedIn isn't withholding viewer data to protect viewer privacy. We know this because they sell it. If the viewer's privacy interest were so compelling that it overrides your Article 15 right (which is what Noyb is referring to), it would also be compelling enough to prevent LinkedIn from selling that same data to Premium subscribers.
The argument being made for this specific feature (not the ones you added) is that you can't simultaneously claim the data is too privacy-sensitive to disclose under GDPR and then sell it as a product feature
Respectfully, that's bollocks. The data, by itself, either does, or it does not. Exchange of unrelated money does not change anything in the data itself. IOW, it's the data that matters, not a wannabe-service that is pitched to the rightful owners.
