LinkedIn is committed to keeping its members' data safe and its website free from fraud and abuse. In order to protect our members' data and our website, we don't permit the use of any third party software, including "crawlers", bots, browser plug-ins, or browser extensions that scrape, modify the appearance of, or automate activity on LinkedIn's website. We also don’t permit the use of fake accounts or fake engagement on LinkedIn’s website, including any tools or services that try to manipulate LinkedIn’s content algorithms. All of these tools violate the User Agreement, including, but not limited to, the following prohibitions listed in Section 8.2:
- Develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots, or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons, or any other technology) to scrape the Services or otherwise copy profiles and other data from the Services;
- Use bots or other automated methods to access the Services, add or download contacts, send or redirect messages;
- Overlay or otherwise modify the Services or their appearance (such as by inserting elements into the Services or removing, covering, or obscuring an advertisem*nt included on the Services);
- Copy, use, disclose or distribute any information obtained from the Services, whether directly or through third parties (such as search engines), without the consent of LinkedIn;
- Override any security feature or bypass or circumvent any access controls or use limits of the Service (such as caps on keyword searches or profile views);
- Deep-link to our Services for any purpose other than to promote your profile or a Group on our Services, without LinkedIn’s consent.
- Interfere with the operation of, or place an unreasonable load on, the Services (e.g., spam, denial of service attack, viruses, gaming algorithms).
Any member who uses tools for such purposes is in violation of the User Agreement. This means that they risk having their accounts restricted or shut down. They also risk the possibility that any prohibited tools they’re using may become non-operational without notice. In order to maintain LinkedIn as a safe and trusted platform to facilitate authentic interactions between professionals and to keep our members' data safe, we're constantly working to improve our technical measures and defenses against the operation of scraping, automation, and other tools that abuse LinkedIn's platform.
