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nitwit005yesterday at 9:10 PM2 repliesview on HN

I'm sure there are issues with fake accounts for scraping, but the core issue is that LinkedIn considers the data valuable. LinkedIn wants to be able to sell the data, or access to it at least, and the scrapers undermine that.

They could stop all the scraping by providing a downloadable data bundle like Wikipedia.


Replies

sidrag22today at 1:43 AM

thinking more about, I don't think its a terrible thing that they prevent scraping. Their listings are already suffering from being flooded with garbage applications and having to sift through tons of noise. allowing scraping would just amplify that and make the platform almost entirely worthless.

I "scrape" linkedin in a roundabout way for personal use, and really what Ive found is that i should just maybee not bother at all. I can't get through the noise even when im applying at places that heavily match my skillset, and just get automated rejection emails.

compiler-guyyesterday at 9:21 PM

LLMs scrape Wikipedia all the time, or at least attempt to.

The data bundle doesn't help that at all.

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