LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network • Hacker News Board

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#31

Post by imroot » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:10 PM UTC

I wish that LinkedIn had the ability to disable your profile.

I'm not looking for a job, I'm not looking to connect with recruiters, and I really don't like the ability for one of my exes to publicly see where I'm working so that she can continue to harass me -- on the other hand, My LinkedIn Profile is around eight or nine years old at this point in time, and I've amassed a fair amount of connections, that I'd like to keep should I need to start looking for a job anytime soon. I wish that I could disable it, hiding it from search engines, recruiters, and anyone else who's looking for it, until I'm ready to start looking for a job without deleting every one of my connections and starting over.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#32

Post by msm23 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:13 PM UTC

The author pointed out that there is an additional Privacy Controls section in Groups, Companies & Applications as well as under Profile. However, there is yet another Privacy Controls section under Account.

    LinkedIn may use cookies and similar technologies
    on third party sites to understand my browsing interests
    and target ads and personalize services accordingly.

If you're going to have a "Privacy Controls" section, then please do not be creepy and spread such controls through three separate sections.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#33

Post by chatmasta » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #20

One time I sent an email to a random celebrity, and literally a few minutes later he showed up in my 'you may know..' list. I became convinced at that point that LI is sniffing SMTP headers at peering points. I don't know how you would cut that deal, but if Google has their CDN everywhere, there's precedent.

More likely they get data from their acquisition of Rapportive, which is a gmail extension that displays LinkedIn info of people next to emails from/to them.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#34

Post by crypt1d » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:15 PM UTC

fps wrote: post #25

I had an interesting experience last year when I was working in a co-working space. I noticed that LinkedIn started suggesting to me the other people who were working in the same space. I had no verbal or virtual contact with these people, other than basic office small talk, but I never knew their name and they never knew mine. I mentioned it to them, and they all claimed they hadn't looked me up on LinkedIn, and tha…

Or perhaps you had the same workplace info on Linkedin?

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#35

Post by wdewind » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

fps wrote: post #25

I had an interesting experience last year when I was working in a co-working space. I noticed that LinkedIn started suggesting to me the other people who were working in the same space. I had no verbal or virtual contact with these people, other than basic office small talk, but I never knew their name and they never knew mine. I mentioned it to them, and they all claimed they hadn't looked me up on LinkedIn, and tha…

Maybe someone had all of your email addresses (like the organizer of the coworking space) and uploaded them to LinkedIn via the contact finder.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#36

Post by jamiesonbecker » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #33

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #20

One time I sent an email to a random celebrity, and literally a few minutes later he showed up in my 'you may know..' list. I became convinced at that point that LI is sniffing SMTP headers at peering points. I don't know how you would cut that deal, but if Google has their CDN everywhere, there's precedent.

More likely they get data from their acquisition of Rapportive, which is a gmail extension that displays LinkedIn info of people next to emails from/to them.

Good guess, except neither of us were using Gmail.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#37

Post by antoinec » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

fps wrote: post #25

I had an interesting experience last year when I was working in a co-working space. I noticed that LinkedIn started suggesting to me the other people who were working in the same space. I had no verbal or virtual contact with these people, other than basic office small talk, but I never knew their name and they never knew mine. I mentioned it to them, and they all claimed they hadn't looked me up on LinkedIn, and tha…

I had the same experience with my roommates a few years ago, I knew their names offline, but I never had any contact with them online (no email, not friends on Facebook, not followed on Twitter...) , and Linkedin suggested them to me. The only online thing we shared was our IP address...

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#38

Post by untog » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:19 PM UTC

Deleted my LinkedIn account about a year ago. I'm yet to suffer a single negative consequence from it.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#39

Post by fps » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

crypt1d wrote: post #34

fps wrote: post #25

I had an interesting experience last year when I was working in a co-working space. I noticed that LinkedIn started suggesting to me the other people who were working in the same space. I had no verbal or virtual contact with these people, other than basic office small talk, but I never knew their name and they never knew mine. I mentioned it to them, and they all claimed they hadn't looked me up on LinkedIn, and tha…

Or perhaps you had the same workplace info on Linkedin?

we worked for different companies - even technically in different cities - I live in Boston and was working for a company in SF. My LinkedIn entry for my workplace listed the SF address.

Re: LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network

#40

Post by jamiesonbecker » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 3:21 PM UTC

fintler wrote: post #26

joering2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have shared my mail credentials with Linkedin, but I assume she has Unfortunately that's not the case, and it's much darker than this. Recently I was asked by a friend to open a profile for a non-existing character from her book. I had to create an email address to open a linkedin. A new email address. Never used. After creating profile I emailed this new account from my own email. Week later my profile sho…

Wait, why can't the relationship just be: you -> your friend -> a post your friend made with the name of the character -> the fictional character's profile Getting Yahoo/email involved seems unnecessary to make the link.

At some point Occam's razor comes into play.