I have an account on the LinkedIn.com web site. Some months ago I exchanged a half dozen e-mails with a businessman in my town. Let's call him "Joe Jones."  A few weeks after my last e-mail to Jones I received a notice from LinkedIn asking me, "Do you know Joe Jones?"

I called Jones and asked if he ever entered my name somewhere on his LinkedIn account.  He said, "No."  It seems to me the only way LinkedIn could associate me with Joe Jones is if LinkedIn scanned through and extracted personal information from the e-mail files on my computer without my knowledge or permission!! 

After searching the web and finding the following three links, when it comes to User Privacy, I believe LinkedIn has joined Microsoft, Google, and Facebook to become part of "The Dark Side of the Force."

http://www.interactually.com/linkedin-creepiest-so...

https://skeptoid.com/blog/2014/05/13/beware-of-lin...

https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/2/9444067/linkedi...

Many hanks for sharing these insights Rick, appreciated.

Regards.

Hi Rick,

I don't have an account on LinkedIn.  Every once in a while I get "invitations" from LinkedIn to join as a contact to so-and-so who I have corresponded with in the past.  I've always assumed that LinkedIn scanned the contact list of so-and-so.

From the third article you cited: "The lawsuit revolves around LinkedIn's Add Connections feature, which would send out connection requests to people in a user's contact list who did not already have a LinkedIn account."

The article is dated 2015.  I have gotten "invitations" and "reminders" since then.  I have never responded.

Ced

LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft but I don't think they are scanning third party emails. Any other connections?

I suspect that "Joe Jones" used the "Add Connections feature" and RL's address was in JJ's contact list.  Since he was already a member, a confirmation email was sent.  If he hadn't been a member, an invite to join would have been sent.

I don't think they scanned the emails on his machine.

Ced

Ced so what you're saying is that JJ, by using the Add Connections Features, essentially gave LinkedIn permission to read the contact list(s) somewhere on his machine, generated / maintained by Outlook (or other Microsoft-owned e-mail, Skype, or other software), and RL was already on that list due to the e-mails they had previously exchanged ?

Do I have that right or am I missing something ?  Thanks.

-Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I think that is how it works.  The permission is probably stated somewhere in the fine print.  I don't belong to LinkedIn so I can't tell you for sure.

The only thing you didn't say, which isn't a big difference, is that JJ added RL to his contact list.  I don't think that happens automatically.  Speculation though.

I hope RL will followup with JJ to see if that is indeed what happened.

Ced

Ced yeah I'm not sure either.  I think at one time it was automatic and you had to make an effort to get it to prompt you:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/fo...

Even now, I have no doubt that between all the various devices and versions of Outlook and Skype, there are options that are set to default in favor of Microsoft's ability to collect contact info.  One reason I don't use Outlook, and Skype only on work machines.

-Jeff

A little searching found this:

www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/4214/importi...

Ced

Hello together, 

thanks to Rick for posting this issue here regarding LinkedIn [following the threads...] for being sued for eMail espionage, http://www.wired.co.uk/article/linkedin-sued-by-us...

Furthermore, I now was able to reconstruct a missing chain in a causal link which is already even a definitive proof for LinkedIn deliberatedly exploiting information resources be it legal or not (it is always illegal by the way, even if "legalized"). 

Once I was member of LinkedIn, after some time I quit (for LinkedIn being directly and totally useless for me), but, although allegedly my profile was cleared, I strangely received  several  contact-eMails from LinkedIn up to date for persons which I "should" know, and they requested me to confirm, but I asked myself how could this people try to get in contact with me, when i.e. in that I have no account ???

So I complained at LinkedIn about having still not cleared my profile and they answered that my profile was cleared. I checked that and it was, for me, impossible for logging in, and google even no longer did find the profile (they did for some time after clearing, there is a latency build-in). So LinkedIn does not care, if a user has a profile or not, so they stupidly crawl for eMail adresses and send unmotivated contact-eMails, this is spam.

I found over the years a rule always to remember: if there is a potential, any possibility to gather information, information will collected and it will be used, that is the business model of microsoft-type companies and how they want torule the world. Even using windows already actually can be construed as a general consent for the user to be used, at least in terms of his data, and the net never forgets. So thanks for some unkown russian hackers who are highly valuing this interesting DSP-site and are fully capable of shutting down the servers of LinkedIn ... to show them impressingly that their power is always finitive in real things ... :-) .

Best greetings

pat.