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phasefactor
elsjaako
To be technically correct: if even a single non-premium member can, for some reason, see who viewed their profile, then the statement "only Premium members can see who has viewed their profile" is false.
So technically, you can't say that the first part of the statement is false from the screenshot.
huhkerrf
But the statement wasn't false, was it? I'm not a paying member of LinkedIn, and I can see who visited my profile.
xerox13ster
What you have is the ability to see every 5th person who entered your house.
noutella
They do say they won’t bother, but the rest of the article is actually precisely covering this second point, aka Article 15 of LK Privacy Policy
loloquwowndueo
Rhetorical argument is rhetorical?
SAI_Peregrinus
It's covering article 15 of the GDPR, not of LinkedIn's Privacy Policy.
SAI_Peregrinus
Also, I just checked, and LinkedIn's privacy policy page doesn't contain any information about who viewed my profile in the last year. No usernames, no company names, it's just a generic privacy policy. So the data isn't there either.
thrance
Seriously, this is what I miss the most in legacy media. Much too often "journalists" will simply relay politicians' statements uncritically, when they're obviously fallacious or straight lies. This is very refreshing on The Register's part.
noname120
This is the ludicrous part:
> LinkedIn rejected the request on the grounds that protecting that data took precedence.
Guess that implies that paying takes precedence on data protection
bee_rider
I wonder if they will be able to make any argument along the lines of: we’re much more confident about the identities of paying customers so we think there’s less privacy risk in that case.
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).
jmkd
They should give the data to people who ask, which will be a snapshot in time presented in a spreadsheet. Then what you are paying for is the interface that shows you who clicked yesterday with a thumbnail and a link to their profile, and who will click tomorrow, as long as you keep paying. But refusing the download option is not on.
menno-sh
Oh I LOVE this, we can't have enough of these privacy-focused non-profits making tech companies' lives difficult. They have such a strong argument here, too. I can imagine that whoever came up with this is very pleased with theirselves, and rightfully so.
k33n
It’s a very European concept, that making life difficult is a worthy pursuit. LinkedIn sucks, and I hate this feature. But that’s why I hardly use it and don’t pay them any money.
greggoB
> It’s a very European concept, that making life difficult is a worthy pursuit
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.
k33n
I’m an incredibly bold guy. And I would personally just stop operating in the EU if it was between that and being accountable to their bureaucrats.
robin_reala
It’s about having rights, and exercising them. If companies find that difficult to work with then they’re not even hitting the minimum baseline.
shimman
Also why should we allow such companies to exist if the vast majority of people don't like their actions? There's no fundamental right to starting a business, so might as well make businesses socially acceptable rather than fucking the public for profit.
recursivecaveat
As everyone knows, there are no soldiers, or litigation lawyers, or security guards, or investigative journalists, or police, or home inspectors, in America, since everyone understands it would be inappropriate to make life difficult for bad actors. The one true way is to lie down for corporations, and tell anyone who doesn't like it that they're free to live in the woods and interact with no-one if they appreciate personal liberty so much.
atwrk
You think standing in for people's rights against the profit interests of transnational corporations means "making life difficult"? Whose life exactly? That of the CEO of Microsoft?
fellowmartian
Hey, he MIGHT be that CEO one day. Currently he’s temporarily embarrassed billionaire.
k33n
> Oh I LOVE this, we can't have enough of these privacy-focused non-profits making tech companies' lives difficult.
Literally the comment I replied to.
john_strinlai
it is a very American concept, that company interests should be placed above human interests and rights.
malfist
Well, not all Americans. Just ones of a specific political bent that is common on this site. And the wealthy ones, because they have the money hoarding disease
1234letshaveatw
[flagged]
newyankee
When an entity becomes almost a monopoly, surely the rules about some behaviours should be stronger
embedding-shape
> It’s a very European concept, that making life difficult is a worthy pursuit.
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.
theturtlemoves
[flagged]
dang
Please don't post national/regional slurs to HN. I agree that it's different when you're part of the group, but from a moderation point of view the effect on the threads ends up being bad anyway.
theturtlemoves
Thank you for pointing that out. Fair point. Sorry for spoiling the atmosphere.
isodev
Correction, we hate making money at the expense of other peoples rights and liberties. It's kind of frustrating to have to explain that to US folks over and over again... all that "freedom" in their things is apparently very decorative.
theturtlemoves
Depends on what you mean by right. Oftentimes it's rephrased as "The other guy's obligation".
Anonbrit
I'd say instead that we value the commons and don't like companies making money by externalising all their problems to the general public.
If company Foo leaks my personal data, I suffer, they don't, so without regulation there's no reason for them to invest in protecting it. Same with pollution and similar
Snow_Falls
I'm european (what a vague term...) and I disagree completely. I have never seen this attitude you apparently have. I've seen lots of celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship, I've seen less appreciation for the american style "anything goes as long as the stock price goes up" business environment.
lmf4lol
I don’t agree. I run a startup in Europe for a couple of years. I never had once someone hating in me because we are successful. Literally everyone I talked with abiut it thinks its super cool what we do and supported the efforts and wished us best of luck or offered actual help.
The Europeans are very aware of the externalities of businesses. This translates to more bureacracy and often also into pretty dumb “solutions” (cookie banner). Gdpr is not one of those dumb solutions btw. Its annoying to implement, true, and it puts EU business at a disadvantage compared to US businesses, but it gives also power to the people. And that is what counts in the end.
Ask yourself: do you really want to live in a Jarvinian techno-monarchy, where companies are the ultimate power holders? I am not so sure I want that.
My hope for the future is that Europeans will eventually build proper alternatives to US companies and escape the chokehold. Then we all play by our own rules and no one is at a disadvantage. Seems like a pipe dream now, but then I remember that England ruled the world not so long ago and China was a third world country nit worth mentioning. Things can turn quickly!
One more thing: Brussel really goes too far, too often. So I am always crossing my fingers for more market liberal parties to gain influence. I dont like a huge government. Not at all. But i dont believe in the nightwatch government idea either.
weezing
Being an European doesn't make your arguments less ridiculous.
Snow_Falls
It must be rememebered that this is the forum of an American investment company. There are far too many here who would love to be the corprate boot crushing us underfood.
micromacrofoot
"In Ireland, people have an interesting attitude toward success—they look down on it. In America, you look at the mansion on the hill and think, 'One day that will be me.' In Ireland, people say, 'One day, I'm going to get that bastard!'"
miki123211
Dating apps do this too; one of the major selling points of Tinder's premium plan is that you can see who swiped right on you.
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.
duxup
I'm not a fan of how LinkedIn operates ... or the culture there in general.
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".
lokar
Easy, sell people the option to hide their profile viewing
boothby
That's so last week; we need micro-auctions between people who want to see and people whose data is involved.
undefined
rusk
Like a reverse panopticon - a truly terrifying concept if you tease it out …
therobots927
I’m interested in hearing your thoughts further on this…
drfloyd51
Wait…
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.)
buzer
Personal data is data that relates to to you. What relates to you is the list of users who viewed your profile.
I think it's very close to C-579/21 which was about audit logs. In that one CJEU ruled that audit logs are personal data of you and the person who performed the action. They did allow censoring the person's name in that case (and exact timestamp), but given that in this case LI is selling this information to same person then "protecting others" rings pretty hollow.
victorbjorklund
Lots of things are like that. A list of things you have bought. Well, the things themselves are not personal data. The relationship is.
archleaf
Wouldn't this apply to every social network? Or is this because LinkedIn shows a teaser for free and more detail for paid?
victorbjorklund
If you mean that Meta probably has a list of which users visited which other users and that they use it for internal stuff? Well, then Meta could argue they won’t tell you who visited you because they need to protect their privacy (harder for LinkedIn since they are selling that data so clearly they don’t care)
tensegrist
isn't this also a thing on dating apps
codethief
I was going to raise this question here. Then again, the only thing you might get is an identifier of the person that swiped left/right on you. You won't really be able to do much with that, though, unless you reverse-engineer the dating site's API and invoke it directly to access dating profiles. …which apps might be able to prevent by using device attestation / Google SafetyNet etc. (You can't easily extract the auth key required for the API.)
scosman
Not sure I follow the logic. The list of profiles I visit feels like it’s my data, not the owners of target profile. By that logic can I GDPR chrome for the browsing history of anyone who has visited my site? IANAL but I thought GDPR is about getting a copy of your data, not others.
Macha
The problem for linkedin is they try to simultaneously claim that it’s the visitors data and therefore they can’t disclose it at the same time as claiming its linkedin’s data so they can sell access to it
treis
They claim they don't have to disclose it not that they can't.
zkmon
Going by that logic, they shouldn't be selling your data to their premium users. Either way, LinkedIn is on the wrong footing.
nananana9
They can spin it as "the list of profiles you visit is your data", this list they'll probably give you if requested, but in addition they're also willing to sell you others' data (the list of people who visit you).
Not precisely a nice way to put it, but it seems consistent to me.
luma
It falls on its face as soon as they offer to sell that data to someone else, which is exactly what they're doing. Can't have it both ways.
Ravus
"personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person" - GDPR article 4
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".
scosman
I believe GDPR says you can access a copy of data they store about you, not that they can't sell it.
ajdude
I think it's more like if you owned a blogspot site, and you're gdpr'ing the list of users who visited your site (given Google logged every single user who visited, and associated that visit specifically with you).
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.
Hamuko
If Google approached me and offered me Chrome Premium that allows me to see the identities of everyone who has visited my site, I feel like we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.
dec0dedab0de
Interesting, does that mean if you use google analytics you can demand the details google has about every user that hits your site?
nkmnz
I think the key point here is that LinkedIn distributes personal data of the profile owner to the visitor. That data is subject to GDPR, so the plaintiff assumes that they have the right to know who received that data from LinkedIn.
What kind of personal data of the website owner does google analytics distribute that makes that analogy work?
codethief
No, because your site is not a person, so data related to it is not protected under GDPR.
dec0dedab0de
what if the site is just a personal blog?
codethief
There is still no personal data in Google Analytics? And even if there is, that data is public.
strictnein
I don't quite get the "GDPR requires you to share with someone the personal details of people who happened to visit a webpage that you setup on a free website" angle here. I don't get how that's your data and not the data of the people who visited the page?
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.
buzer
It's both your data and that person's data.
(copied from my earlier comment) I think it's very close to C-579/21 which was about audit logs. In that one CJEU ruled that audit logs are personal data of you and the person who performed the action. They did allow censoring the person's name in that case (and exact timestamp), but given that in this case LI is selling this information to same person then "protecting others" rings pretty hollow.
jjouett
Agree, I don't fully understand the argument that this would be the owning profiles data, and not either Linkedin's or the viewer's. Would you be entitled to search query data from Google because your website is in some query results, and Google has to provide you that metadata for free?
camillomiller
I believe that the case here is different. That would be true, say, for your substack page. But in this case, your "profile" is more than just a web page, it contains personal information, which albeit public, is your property according to the law. Therefore any interaction with it falls under article 15. Personally I would find it fantastic if LinkedIn is forced to make this feature available to all users. I can't see it but as a win for consumers and a loss for inducing payment through extraction of interrelational value.
ChrisArchitect
[dupe] Some more on source: https://noyb.eu/en/linkedin-locks-your-gdpr-rights-behind-pa... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019775)
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Love it, the article referring to a statement by a LinkedIn spokesperson: "The first part of that statement is false, as you can see from the screenshot above. Given the obvious untrustworthiness of that half of the statement, we didn't bother wasting any time trying to evaluate the second part."