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LinkedIn is a Virus

a.wholelottanothing.org

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Re: LinkedIn is a Virus

#2

Post by troebr »

The exact same thing happened to me with http://viadeo.com/, a linkedin clone pretty popular in France.

The way it was worded hinted that I could chose from contacts who were on both my gmail contacts and viadeo users to connect with them. Not send an add to subscribe to viadeo to my entire contact list (who would ever want to do that??).

It's such a horrible feeling when you realize what just happened.

It emailed my grandmother, who had no idea what that was, it emailed past companies HR, ex-girlfriends, CEOs... This is unacceptable. I don't know how gmail could prevent applications from doing that, but they should not even TRY to do that in the first place.

Re: LinkedIn is a Virus

#4

Post by ghshephard »

troebr wrote: post #2

The exact same thing happened to me with http://viadeo.com/ , a linkedin clone pretty popular in France. The way it was worded hinted that I could chose from contacts who were on both my gmail contacts and viadeo users to connect with them. Not send an add to subscribe to viadeo to my entire contact list (who would ever want to do that??). It's such a horrible feeling when you realize what just happened. It emailed m…

ex-girlfriends, ouch. I initially thought this feature, while annoying, wasn't that big a deal. I've changed my mind.

Re: LinkedIn is a Virus

#5

Post by mdlthree »

ghshephard wrote: post #3

I'm willing to wager that the "ease" by which this "feature" is executed was not entirely by accident (supporting the headline's premise).

I tried LinkedIn Pro as a try free for 30 days. This required a credit card as it will bill you if you forget to cancel. After a week or so, I was unimpressed and canceled. Or I thought I did. $150 later and three months of not seeing the recurring transaction on my credit card I realized that I had not clicked the right buttons to cancel. I felt cheated by deceptive UI design.

Re: LinkedIn is a Virus

#10

Post by jurassic »

I've been eyeing the gmail import tool with suspicion, and I'm glad I didn't give in to my curiosity. I'd be mortified if all the contacts in my address book got an email blast from a 3rd party website.
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