HiQ Labs

HiQ Labs, Inc. operated within the data analytics sector, focusing on leveraging publicly available data to build products for businesses. The company was established in 2012 by co-founders Darren Kaplan, who served as CEO, and Gary Cruver, who was the CTO. Both founders brought experience from the professional services and technology sectors to their venture. Kaplan, a former professional hockey player, transitioned into a career in sales and management at companies like Right Media and AppNexus, while Cruver had a background in software engineering and architecture.

The core of HiQ Labs' business was the analysis of public workforce data, primarily from LinkedIn profiles, to provide human resources insights to corporate clients. The firm developed two main products: "Keeper" and "Skill Mapper." Keeper was designed to help employers identify employees who were at risk of leaving the company by analyzing changes in their public profiles. Skill Mapper provided a comprehensive overview of the skills possessed by a company's workforce, aiming to assist with internal mobility and talent management. The business model was based on selling subscriptions to these services to enterprise clients, who used the analytics to inform their talent retention and management strategies.

HiQ Labs' operations were significantly impacted by a legal battle with LinkedIn. In 2017, LinkedIn sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that HiQ stop scraping data from its public profiles, which was the foundation of HiQ's products. This initiated a lengthy court case, with HiQ arguing that the data was public and not protected by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Although HiQ initially won an injunction allowing it to continue its activities, the legal dispute created substantial business uncertainty. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which vacated the earlier ruling and sent it back to the lower court for reconsideration. In 2022, HiQ Labs agreed to a permanent injunction, which prevented it from continuing its data scraping practices from LinkedIn and ultimately led to the cessation of its business operations.

Keywords: data analytics, human resources, talent management, workforce analytics, predictive analytics, employee retention, skill mapping, data scraping, legal dispute, business intelligence