

Ask HN: Legality of sharing personal data? - bkrausz

I know this is a particularly sketchy sounding title, and every response will be prefixed with "IANAL", but I was wondering if anyone had any experience with sites that share personal data.<p>Here's a similar idea, but not exactly what I'm looking to do (not the same target group at least):<p>Recruiters on average look at a lot of resumes, technically with no permission to share (though also no ban on it).  Were there to be a website where users (HR folk) get "credits" for each resume they upload and/or categorize, and can use these credits to download other resumes, would this be legal?  Now what if the data isn't resumes, but just names and phone numbers the recruiters pick up at networking events?  Now what if the HR reps could purchase credits for money?<p>It sounds like something that's informally done now.  It also sounds sketchy, but there's a line between "helpful to everyone" and "spammy" which I would never cross.<p>Obviously I would consult a lawyer if I wanted to go through with such an idea, but I wanted a quick sanity check to see if I'm way off base here.
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micks56
Facts are not copyrightable. Compilations of facts may be copyrightable.
__Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co. __, 499 U.S. 340
(1991).

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bkrausz
Thanks for the info. I'm mostly more concerned with privacy laws than
copyright, since I think those laws are much more applicable here.

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micks56
Oh, OK. I can't comment on your facts specifically, so the links below just
deal with privacy in general.

For an introduction to the issues and the laws, read this law review article.
Michael Froomkin, Cyberspace and Privacy: A New Legal Paradigm? The Death of
Privacy?, 52 STAN. L. REV. 1461 (2000).
[http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/privacy-
deathof....](http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/privacy-deathof.pdf)

This case deals with exceeding authorized access on a website: Konop v.
Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., 302 F.3d 868 (9th Cir. 2002)
<http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case32.cfm>

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olefoo
This sounds like a fairly typical list broker operation, with a somewhat
crowdsourced twist. A bit more wired, but not particularly new. If you are
thinking of selling lists be aware that there are lots of competitors and that
the industry as a whole is not in good repute. You would be up against folks
like <http://www.infousa.com/>

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DanielStraight
It sounds like this is 10 miles past the spammy line to me.

