LinkedIn Customers Allege Company Hacked E-Mail Addresses

[IDemo]

By Linda Sandler - 2013-09-22T00:05:05Z

LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD), owner of the world’s most popular professional-networking website, was sued by customers who claim the company appropriated their identities for marketing purposes by hacking into their external e-mail accounts and downloading contacts’ addresses.

The customers, who aim to lead a group suit against LinkedIn, asked a federal judge in San Jose, California, to bar the company from repeating the alleged violations and to force it to return any revenue stemming from its use of their identities to promote the site to non-members, according to a court filing.

“LinkedIn’s own website contains hundreds of complaints regarding this practice,” they said in the complaint filed Sept. 17, which also seeks unspecified damages.

LinkedIn claims to have the largest online professional network with more than 238 million members, including executives from every Fortune 500 company. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Weiner is quoted in the complaint as saying on a second-quarter earnings call, “This strong membership growth is due in large part to new growth optimization efforts.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-20/linkedin-customers-say-company-hacked-their-e-mail-address-books.html

[Baitball Blogger]

1. This would make sense.

I am not a member and I received what is equivalent to friend requests from two LinkedIn members, that really had no reason to rekindle our relationship.

[riverbendviewgal]

3. me too

But I am good friends with my job seeking friend she never referred me to linkin.
Creepy.

[Renew Deal]

2. I doubt they hacked anything

More likely, the users of LinkedIn allowed them to send invites to their address books.

[Sunlei]

4. read the eula for many of those online sites. They are allowed to sell your information.

Our Gov. is probably one of their largest customers.

Far as email 'address books' go, they are easy & legal in many cases to grab. I was told long ago to never use them. I use a small text file for group email addies and copy paste for group mail.

Nothing (like LinkedIn registration) is really free on the internet.