Live data from Hacker News

Stop Using LinkedIn

stopusinglinkedin.com

161–170 of 237 posts

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#161

LinkedIn screwed me over real good a few weeks back. They sent me an email saying "There are 108 people you might want to connect with", so I click on view all and it shows a giant list of people with checkmarks by their names. Nice. I uncheck all of them, and scroll through checking a few folks who I want to network with (5 people in total). Click next, it takes me to a screen showing the 5 people and the banner cle…

Not all entries in your address book are "people" either. Are any of them mailing lists? (Like open source projects or whatnot?) They will get this spam also.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#162
post #153

LinkedIn creeps me the hell out with their connection suggestions, that are way too accurate for for anyone to make through honest means, especially given that I've intentionally been very restrictive with what I've added to my profile. I've even been very uneasy about accepting connection requests, since this isn't something I really want to contribute to. Of course, that means the cost of deleting my account is ver…

Yes I'm always surprised by who shows up as suggested contacts. Often it's people who I've interacted with online maybe once. My best guess is that those people are providing LinkedIn their contact lists.

I wonder how many are Android users. iOS gives users the option of preventing apps from accessing contact data.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the holy flying fuck would anyone give someone they met on the Internet the ability to impersonate them? That's like online safety 101, right after not giving out your home address and vacation schedule. Especially when that someone already has a bad reputation like linkedin has.

I had no idea that I granted them permission to send email through my account, I thought I had restricted them to the address book. I made a mistake.

You don't think that giving an address book full of good addresses to known spammers is a bad idea?

Oh, it's okay as long as they send messages to those contacts using their identity, so it's not traced back to you ...

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#164
post #151
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> revoked LinkedIn's access to my gmail account I honestly don't know what people are thinking while enabling that . No, Seriously?

Until now I didn't even actually think such people exist. Especially on HN.

Seems a bit snarky?

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#165
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually found that even if you pay there's STILL a lot of "people who've viewed you" that you can't actually view!

I'm actually partially responsible for this. I actually designed that product at LinkedIn. There are some people who need to stay anonymous for various reasons including lawyers, M&A people, etc. The setting for how you show up in other people's who viewed your profile is controlled by the individual user. It is a privacy thing. The messaging when upgrading used to be much more clear - you would get to see more peopl…

I don't understand: what legitimate reasons do they for being anonymous?

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#166

LinkedIn creeps me the hell out with their connection suggestions, that are way too accurate for for anyone to make through honest means, especially given that I've intentionally been very restrictive with what I've added to my profile. I've even been very uneasy about accepting connection requests, since this isn't something I really want to contribute to. Of course, that means the cost of deleting my account is ver…

I have a problem where I lived in a building with a bunch of people who turned out to be fairly dishonest. We all have each others email addresses because we had to communicate about the home-owners' association. I moved out, and now LinkedIn regularly suggests that I connect with these douchebags because I'm still in their address books.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#167
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of wisdom only comes with being burnt and cynical. We shouldn't require that of our users.

Does it? Nobody considers it "cynical" to not give the pizza guy the key to your house.

The pizza boy doesn't ask for your home keys it EVERY TIME he brings you a pizza.

Yet LinkedIn goes far beyond that. LinkedIn is clearly engaging in "dark ui patterns", hoping to trick you into giving those keys (and using them too!) when you are not mindfull.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#168
You had me until "Quora" as a suggested alternative. If any site approaches the annoyance level of LinkedIn for me, it's Quora. Both have a habit of spamming me; their unsubscribe stuff is kinda dark pattern-y, in that it's easy to end up still getting mail from them even after clicking through to unsubscribe.

That said, I haven't used LinkedIn in years. Have no interest in it, for anything. If I needed work, I might consider going back, but I doubt it. I certainly wouldn't hire someone based on a LinkedIn profile, and I probably wouldn't want to work for someone who did.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#169
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The assholes sent 300 people linkedin connection requests through my own personal gmail account. With zero warning whatsoever. The fact that they requested access to your email account should have been warning enough.

I can't understand why anyone would give any entity access to their email, it's really baffling. I personally see LinkedIn as horrible, and deleted my account long ago. They don't let you restrict who can view your profile, and they allow people to remain anonymous. For anyone who cares about Privacy, this should be a huge no-no.

Agreed, it's incredible, and utterly dumbfounding, that people would simply turn over access to their email like that. The only explanation I can imagine is that other (younger?) people just don't take email as seriously.

Re: Stop Using LinkedIn

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how Gmail allows it. I assume they've gotten enough complaints about it being abused to prohibit or strictly limit access with at least warnings before actions can be taken.

Because the "old way" was worse. http://blog.codinghorror.com/please-give-us-your-email-passw... I believe Facebook was the first site to ask users for their email passwords -- and to great effect, at least on their growth metrics.

I tried searching Google for "has facebook ever asked for email account logins and passwords?" and couldn't find any proof. Does anyone have a source for this?
Post reply on HN