Ask HN: How do we fight LinkedIn/Microsoft

3 points

2 years ago

I am the founder of one sales data providers who updates CRM records when a customer job change jobs. We rely on publicly available information on a LinkedIn profile (that you can find by searching for a name on google/bing search) to source this information. We only do this for opted in users so that we are within the bounds of GDPR/CCPA laws.

But LinkedIn as of this morning has updated their public profile policy to make it difficult for vendors like us to get access to this data, even though they continue to sell the job change information to their customers (based on how each person updates LinkedIn job status): https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a518980

Historically there was a fine balance.. LinkedIn collects data from its users by telling them that they will not sell their data and they make money through making connections (LinkedIn recruiter / sales navigator).

Data providers would rely on publicly available information to update their records so that sales teams can prospect target accounts accurately.

Any thoughts on how we fight this battle?

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