I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over • Hacker News Board

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#201

Post by csmpltn » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #114

csmpltn wrote: post #36

A good reminder of how things actually work, but the article could use some more balancing… > Let that sink in. You scanned your European passport for a European professional network, and your data went exclusively to North American companies. Not a single EU-based subprocessor in the chain. LinkedIn is an American product. The EU has had 20 years to create an equally successful and popular product, which it failed t…

> American companies don’t owe your European nationalist ambitions a dime. Use their products at your own discretion. As a fairly vociferous eu person....I fully agree. However, gdpr covers all eu residents, so if US companies don't want to obey eu law, that'sa fine, too.

Nobody is forcing you to use LinkedIn. LinkedIn is an American product, made by an American company in America, subject to American law. When you create an account - you agree to American terms and conditions, arbitrated by American courts.

LinkedIn doesn't need to obey to EU law. It needs to obey to American law, which allows LinkedIn to do business with anybody (other than people from sanctioned countries) whilst complying with US law. EU's laws don't matter in the US. The EU can sue LinkedIn, but LinkedIn can just safely ignore any lawsuits and ignore sanctions, because they are an American company subject to American laws.

EU citizens are willingly subscribing to an American service, then complain the American service doesn't abide by EU laws. That's laughable at every level, to any individual with a modicum of intelligence. If you don't agree to the terms, don't use LinkedIn. You are not entitled to anything.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#202

Post by huhtenberg » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

jll29 wrote: post #107

eastbound wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when LinkedIn was condemned because they copied Gmail’s login page saying “Log in with Google”, then you entered your password, then they retrieved all your contacts, even the bank, the mailing lists, your ex, and spammed the hell out of them, saying things in your name in the style of “You haven’t joined in 5 days, I want you to subscribe” ?

The original version of the LinkedIn mobile app uploaded your personal contacts stored on your smart phone and SIM to their server (to also "invite" them), without requesting user permission. After that, I never installed it again (but too late), and I bought a second (non-smart) phone.

WhatsApp infamously did just that.

It vacuumed the contacts and spammed them with "Join me on WhatsApp". One of the reasons for their initial exponential growth.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#203

Post by wolvoleo » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

dzink wrote: post #184

wolvoleo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think flying to a country is a whole lot different than a little tickmark on a website, sorry. Don't forget that if you fly to a country you are also bound by their laws. They can do anything to you as long as they can make it stick under their laws. It's one thing that people often don't realise when flying somewhere, you are basically giving a blanket submission to their laws! For this reason I have a long blackl…

I don’t say it to justify what linkedin is doing - there is no justification for that. I say it to warn those who are conscious of it that there are more places that will harvest the data and use it.

Sorry for my misunderstanding of your point.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#204

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

prox wrote: post #64

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #25

Since some job offers require a linked in link, I maintain an empty page explaining why maintaining a LI account is a privacy and security hole. It turns out it works.

Did you need to verify your account first?

No, and it's difficult for me to understand why anyone would ever want that.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#205

Post by csmpltn » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

poszlem wrote: post #58

csmpltn wrote: post #36

A good reminder of how things actually work, but the article could use some more balancing… > Let that sink in. You scanned your European passport for a European professional network, and your data went exclusively to North American companies. Not a single EU-based subprocessor in the chain. LinkedIn is an American product. The EU has had 20 years to create an equally successful and popular product, which it failed t…

I see this sentiment constantly. It is genuinely hilarious to watch Americans lecture the world about the free market while feigning shock that Europe hasn't produced its own tech giants. Claiming "the EU had 20 years to build an equally successful product" is the geopolitical equivalent of a deeply dysfunctional 1950s household. For decades, the husband insisted he handle all the enterprise and security so he could…

Oh, the EU is a victim now? And the EU's laziness, bloat and uselessness is the US's fault now?

And where's all of this evidence of this hidden extraordinary European talent and ability that just needs to be unleashed given some more lawyers and regulation?

This is a joke.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#206

Post by kioshix » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

SomeUserName432 wrote: post #32

luxpir wrote: post #29

I really appreciate this write-up. Was forced to verify to get access to a new account. Like, an interstitial page that forced verification before even basic access. Brief context for that: was being granted a salesnav licence, but to my work address with no account attached to it. Plus I had an existing salesnav trial underway on main account and didn't want to give access to that work. So I reluctantly verified wit…

> Was forced to verify to get access to a new account. Like, an interstitial page that forced verification before even basic access. I'm forced to verify to access my existing account. I cannot delete it, nor opt out of 'being used for AI content' without first handing them over even more information I'm sure will be used for completely benign purposes.

About a year ago I wanted to check out LinkedIn. Signed up with my real name, added my employer and past employers, verified my current work email address etc.

About 24 hours later, when logging in to pick up where I left off, I'm redirected to a page that tells me that my account has been locked. For the safety of my account, I needed to verify my identity to continue.

I refused to do so, for the same reasons this article highlights. So I wanted to delete my account and never return. Guess what? You can't delete your account without first verifying.

It took me a few frustrating months of trying to email their DPO (data protection officer) and filling out forms, constantly being routed to regular support with very unhelpful support staff. I actually contacted the Irish data protection agency thing (I'm not Irish, but european), and while waiting for them to process the case, I miraculously got a reply from LinkedIn that my account deletion was being processed.

Quite an infuriating experience.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#207

Post by bachmeier » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #20

I used to have a LinkedIn account, a long time ago. To register I created an email address that was unique to LinkedIn, and pretty much unguessable ... certainly not amenable to a dictionary attack. I ended up deciding that I was getting no value from the account, and I heard unpleasant things about the company, so I deleted the account. Within hours I started to get spam to that unique email address. It would be int…

This is a good example of why it's insane that nobody at Mozilla cares that they hire CEOs that have only a LinkedIn page. If you want to visit the website of the Mozilla CEO, you have to create an account and log in. No big deal if it's a CEO of a plastics manufacturing company, but when the mission is fighting against the behavior of companies like LinkedIn, it makes me wonder why Mozilla exists.

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#208

Post by troupo » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

laszlojamf wrote: post #145

troupo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a long list of subprocessors, but any one individual going through our system is only going to interact with two or three at most. So, in aggregate, all 17 data leeches are getting info. They are not getting info on all you users, but different subsets hit different subsets of the "subprocessors" you use. And there's literally no way of knowing whether or not my data hits "two" or "three" or all 17 "at the…

I agree that DPA:s, as they are written today, aren't good. I was just pointing out that the reality probably isn't as bad as the article made it sound. > If you don't see this as a problem, you are a part of the problem I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm just saying that there are way bigger fish to fry in terms of privacy on the internet than passport data. In the end, your face is on every store's CCTV camera…

> I agree that DPA:s, as they are written today, aren't good.

That is, multiple regulations already explicitly restrict the amount of data you can collect and pass on to third parties.

And yet you're here saying "it's not that bad, we don't send eggregious amounts of data to all 17 data brokers at once, inly to 2 or 3 at a time, no big deal"

> In the end, your face is on every store's CCTV camera, your every friends phone

If you don't see how this is a problem already, and is now exacerbated by huge databases cross-referencing your entire life, you are a part of the problem

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#209

Post by Keekgette » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #20

I used to have a LinkedIn account, a long time ago. To register I created an email address that was unique to LinkedIn, and pretty much unguessable ... certainly not amenable to a dictionary attack. I ended up deciding that I was getting no value from the account, and I heard unpleasant things about the company, so I deleted the account. Within hours I started to get spam to that unique email address. It would be int…

[dead]

Re: I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here's what I handed over

#210

Post by csmpltn » Sat, Feb 21, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

lp4v4n wrote: post #191

csmpltn wrote: post #36

A good reminder of how things actually work, but the article could use some more balancing… > Let that sink in. You scanned your European passport for a European professional network, and your data went exclusively to North American companies. Not a single EU-based subprocessor in the chain. LinkedIn is an American product. The EU has had 20 years to create an equally successful and popular product, which it failed t…

>The EU has had 20 years to create an equally successful and popular product, which it failed to do. American companies don’t owe your European nationalist ambitions a dime. Use their products at your own discretion. I can see not everybody here will agree with me, but I find this take absolutely reasonable. The European space has the capacity and the resources to create a product that replaces something as trivial a…

> "The most recent issue is the military question. Europe relied for decades on the "cheap" protection of the USA. Now the USA gave the middle finger to Europe and Europe acts shocked, but Europe is not so shocked when it comes to the military budget it did not spend on self defense during all the time the Americans provided protection."

Fully agree. Europe expects some kids from nowheresville Tennessee to die in a ditch defending Ukraine. The war will be over the second they need to draft 18 year-olds at scale from anywhere in western Europe to go defend "Europe". Nobody in France will die defending Poland, nobody in Greece will die defending Latvia. The EU is such a joke.