Noyb filed a GDPR Article 15 complaint against LinkedIn for withholding full profile-visitor data from free users while selling it to Premium subscribers.
Key Takeaways
GDPR Article 15 grants users the right to any personal data a platform has processed, regardless of whether that data is part of a paid product tier.
LinkedIn gives Premium users 365 days of named visitor data; free users get only vague aggregates and are redirected to upsell pages on any click.
LinkedIn’s spokesperson denied free users are restricted, a claim directly contradicted by the platform’s own UI.
The one Article 15 carve-out LinkedIn could invoke – protecting visitor privacy – is undermined by the fact that LinkedIn already discloses that same visitor data to paying users.
Noyb lawyer Martin Baumann is seeking a precedent that would also cover banks and other companies that charge fees for access to data subjects’ own records.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters largely agree LinkedIn’s legal position is self-defeating: charging for data access implies privacy concerns are negotiable, which invalidates the privacy-protection defense.
There was a minority view that visitor data belongs first to the visitor, but it was quickly countered: under GDPR, if the data pertains to you, you have a right to it regardless of payment.
Notable Comments
@noname120: Points out the internal contradiction – LinkedIn cited data protection to reject the request, yet payment overrides that protection for Premium users.
