Your Career, Your Data, Your Privacy: What About the Scrapers

How much are you worth?

That’s a tricky question. Ask your mom, or your spouse, or you child, or your best friend, and they’d probably say you’re priceless.

Ask your employer, and they’d quote your salary, benefits and payroll taxes.

Ask an agency recruiter, and they’d ask you what you make per year, then do quick math to come to a number probably between 20-30% of your salary (I charge a 10% fee for every placement- I just think it’s reasonable for all parties).

To them, that is what you’re worth. So if you make $50k a year, you’re worth about, hmm, $10-$15k. If you make $100k a year, you’re worth $20-$30k. $150? $30-45k. And so on and so forth.

If that surprises you, you’re not alone. The cost of recruiting fees, considering the vast technological jumps made since the guy in the 80s with a rolodex, are staggering.

It also explains why some recruiters are pushy, desperate, annoying, incessant, and send you jobs you’re not qualified for, over-qualified for or just don’t want.

Fortunately, on job platforms like LinkedIn, you, as an employee and a human, choose to opt-in, choose a password, have an inbox, and can look at recruiter messages, or not, per your discretion.

You create the content on your page, choose the information you want to share, and control the ecosystem in which you can be contacted. It’s as you want, when you want.

On job boards like Indeed, Monster or Careerbuilder, you can post or take down your resume when it suits you.

Unfortunately, technology continues to evolve. And recruiters continue to exist. And as AI and machine learning come to the fore, we have companies who are going to throw a Molotov cocktail at the agreed-upon ecosystems for recruiting, and bundle and sell your live profile information to recruiting firms whether you like it or not.

These “scrapers” are already doing it. Here, on Linkedin, on Github, on Facebook, anywhere that there is “public” data. It’s stealing, and it’s a lazy way to make a quick buck. Linkedin is fighting it in protracted court battle in the ninth circuit and issuing cease and desists to these scrapers left and right, but it’s like playing whack-a-mole.

Back to you. This effects your life directly, because instead of using the closed ecosystems you have agreed to interact with, these scraping companies don’t have the capacity to send InMails, so as a work-around they sell not only your profile, but your private email address, your phone number, maybe your work email, whatever they can find online to tie to you to the recruiting companies so they can track you down and try to turn you into a fee that basically amounts to a new car.

So, if you start getting random emails to your g-mail account software engineering jobs, you know why.

And since scrapers didn’t have to spend decades advertising, getting users to sign up, creating a platform, and creating awareness, they sell your info on the cheap. Maybe half price of what LinkedIn charges for its recruiting tool.

The good news is, there is something you can do to stop it. Everything you create online is yours according to copyright law. When you write a line of information on your LinkedIn profile, or list a skill, or post a comment, by law that is your copywritten content. You own it, no one can sell it or use it without your permission.

When you signed up for LinkedIn part of the user agreement gives them the right to use said material within the confines of the platform.

But you didn’t give that right it to any of these scraping companies.

They are breaking the law.

All you have to do is send a quick cease and desist letter or email to the company stealing your information. Live in the US? This one should do.

If they don’t remove your profile, they are liable for up to $150,000 per incident.

To you.

Cha-Ching.