LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft Corp., said
it is disappointed in the decision and evaluating
options for an appeal. HiQ did not immediately
respond for a message for comment.
Orin Kerr, a law professor at the University of
California, Berkeley called the ruli ng a “major
decision for the open internet.”
“It doesn’t establish that scraping websites
is completely legal, but it goes a long way
toward establishing that it’s not a federal crime,”
he said. The decision, he added, means that,
while a hacker could be arrested for breaking
into a website, a person “can’t be arrested and
prosecuted just for visiting it.”