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Comment by Poomba | Hacker News Reader

Why are they going after the small fish?

If they really want to put a dent into this, go after the biggest players scraping LinkedIn: PeopleDataLabs and Apollo.io (and no, taking down their company page does not count)

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Victory against small fish => establish legal precedence

legal precedence => Surer victory in the future for similar lawsuits

Against bigger fish.

And there's always a bigger fish.

Reminds me of the Apple vs Pear law suit

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/apple-sues-small-...

The dispute was settled because Pear agreed to slightly alter its logo, instead of continuing full litigation (maybe because of resources / dollars it would consume)

Only if the case goes to trial.

If they settle, or the case got dismissed -- no precedent is set.

If that’s going to happen with a small fish then it was certainly going to happen against a big fish. Cheaper, faster, and easier to attack a smaller business first. There is literally no reason to go after a big dog unless they did something particularly egregious and/or distinct that you can anchor your argument with. Unless your goal is just to waste their time and that of their lawyers I guess, though I think we would all assume the goal is to win ultimately.

Even the legal filing and motions can help shape a case since they get rulings and such back. If a judge rejects a motion, maybe they need to approach it a different way when they go after big fish.

Only way this is not beneficial is if software company settle or gets dismissed right away.

Seems there is a scraping precedent already, set by Linkedin v HiQ

https://www.fbm.com/publications/what-recent-rulings-in-hiq-...

Go after small fish that no one cares about first to normalize the activity, then move up to bigger and bigger targets until you become inevitable.

Or, go after the small fish who can’t afford to have a biglaw team on retainer, bulldoze them to get a legal precedent set, and then use the example to extract concessions from the bigger players.

A smaller company without a big legal team is probably more likely to settle than a big company. Settlements don't establish precedent.

So you get money on the way up until you find a company willing to battle in court and lose.

Because they either have side deals with the big names, or they want to set precedent for going after them.

Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist here, but my bet is on having a deal with the big players, we allow you to scrape us (or we give you a pipe you can consume out of), and you pay us in monetary or non-monetary terms; like how many business exchanges work

I doubt they have side deals. They took action on some of them by removing their company page, but that is like a slap in the hand.

If you want to make a big deal about this, tell us you at least sent a letter to the big players too. Otherwise, dont put up such a huge show

They have a trademark ridealong whose chances improve against a less-recognized company.

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