US District Judge Chhabria dismissed class-action lawsuits filed by Nicholas Farrell and Jeff Ganan against LinkedIn. The plaintiffs alleged that the platform scanned users' Chrome extensions to collect private data. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate concrete harm or provide evidence that their specific browser extensions had revealed private information to the company.
The lawsuits were largely based on a report by Fairlinked, a group described as a trade association. LinkedIn argued that Fairlinked is connected to Teamfluence, an Estonian software firm previously banned by LinkedIn for scraping data. A German tribunal recently ruled that Teamfluence software violated LinkedIn's user agreement and that the platform's decision to suspend the company's accounts was justified.
LinkedIn stated that it employs detection systems to identify automated scraping and bot activity that threaten platform security. The company maintains that it only detects information that browser extensions openly provide to websites. LinkedIn's terms of service prohibit the use of extensions to scrape or copy data from the site, a policy disclosed to all members.
The plaintiffs' attorney, J.R. Howell, stated that the court's decision was based on a lack of jurisdiction rather than an adjudication of the legality of LinkedIn's practices. Howell is currently evaluating whether to appeal the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit or to refile the claims in a California state court.
