"Social media giant LinkedIn on Thursday filed a lawsuit against a company which it says operates a network of millions of fake accounts used to scrape data from LinkedIn members before selling the information to third parties without permission. ProAPIs, a software company, and its CEO Rahmat Alam allegedly run an operation which LinkedIn says charges customers up to $15,000 per month for scraped user data taken from the social media platform."
"I drop in to LinkedIn sometimes, and it often feels like bots talking to bots or people using bot-generated "content" to fill the void. I wonder how much data ProAPIs scraped was bot-generated, which was then flipped for a monthly fee so that other bots can push more "content" into the LinkedIn machine. That seems like a terrible feedback loop to get stuck in."
LinkedIn filed a lawsuit alleging ProAPIs and its CEO Rahmat Alam operated a network of millions of fake accounts that scraped LinkedIn member data and sold it to third parties without permission. LinkedIn alleges ProAPIs charged customers up to $15,000 per month for the scraped user data. Observers note LinkedIn feeds are often populated by bots or bot-generated content, raising questions about how much scraped data consisted of automated or synthetic profiles. The scraped material can be resold to actors who use it to deploy additional bot-generated content, potentially creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop of automated accounts amplifying one another.
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