Here's the real reason Apollo and seamless have been banned LinkedIn hates a 'aggressive' data scraping. Violating Linkedin's terms of services isn't a good idea And Apollo/Seamless seemed to do it differently to other tools: → Scale/intensity of scraping Particularly Apollo is known for it’s massive database. Not crazy to think it’s been built through mass, automated scraping of linkedin profiles over a long time period (10+ years?) → Reselling of data Selling data at a huge scale goes against privacy policies → User consent Doesn’t require you to login with your linkedin account Doesn’t need user consent or authorisation to perform certain actions They’re ‘dark’ activities you’re not aware of In contrast, other sales engagement tools focus on: ↳ CRM first approach ↳ email + linkedin + call ↳ requirement for users to log in ↳ operating within linkedin ecosystem ↳ 3rd party providers for data enrichment ↳ not building around mass data extraction This makes it far less likely you violate linkedin’s terms of use. The fact those pages have been removed indicates they do different we’re not aware of Linkedin isn’t known for being forgiving! What are your best practices for linkedin? ~ I offer consultancy for email sequences. DM me for info! 💎
In the world of data - cold calling or mailing is not the real way of finding prospects - linkedin naturally engages relavant audiences with each other. So right way of doing is connect with prospects , engage on their posts and share content - repeat untill you close
I just re-read LinkedIn TOS and they changed it a month ago basically stating that all chrome extensions, even those just changing the UI are prohibited. here's the link https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1341387
This was long time coming. I hope outreach will regain some sanity. High time
1/ They’ve always been tight on their TOS. They’ve never been so allowing towards third party tools - especially scraping tools. Used one ~ 2 years ago. Got booted QUICK. 2/ Perhaps — more optimistically — this is a first step towards an improved Sales Nav (?). Abolishing third parties to gain more room to cook (?) idk
I am 99% sure these databases are primarily LinkedIn scraped data, no matter what they "say". They are all doing everything they can to "mask" the source, but it's hard. Banning their company page on LinkedIn is one of the first steps (or not so first, just the first we all see) I guess So yes, the landscape is changing, for everyone, brand building is becoming more relevant than ever
Interesting insights, Tal Baker-Phillips ! The ban on Apollo and Seamless highlights how critical compliance and ethical data usage are in today's sales and marketing landscape. While automation is great for efficiency, it’s essential to strike a balance between scalability and user consent—violating LinkedIn's policies can have long-term consequences. Curious to hear your thoughts: Do you think this will push companies toward more compliant AI-driven sales engagement, or will alternative data scraping methods just evolve?
building a business by breaking linkedin rules is risky
That's what happens when they give our data to their clients, especially our personal numbers.
Wait what's happening now? Apollos site is still running. Apollo did ban 3rd party scrapers like Export Apollo in the last week, so they have their own version of people scraping their database, which is kinda of ironic lmao
Head of Client Strategy @ ColdIQ | Tech-Driven Revenue Growth
4dWouldn't it have been better if LinkedIn actually improved it's SalesNav so that people wouldn't have to scrape it? There's a ton of data there but you're pretty much limited to the platform and there's no scalable way to reach out to folks through other channels. If they added that to SalesNav, they would be eating Apollo and Seamless' lunch! Banning them doesn't do anything in the long term, folks will still keep using them and they will find other ways to keep scraping the data.