Live data from Hacker News

Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

andrisatteka.blogspot.com

41–50 of 55 posts

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#41

If you don't have a linkedin account I highly recommend the experience of setting one up. It is horrible. You are upsold at every step of the process. Reminded at every step that you should import your contacts and just forced to use horrible defaults every step of the way. After you have an account you'd think the sane defaults would be to not spam you with every little thing that happens on the site. Nope, you manu…

>I don't know about you but if there was some other network for professionals to showcase profiles I would jump on that immediately.

What features would make this a killer? We are working on something that is in this general space and have a few ideas, including the ideas that started the project, but I'm curious what other pain points you can enumerate.

What would be a perfect linkedin substitute for you?

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#42

I recently got access to a LinkedIn recruiter-level account, and it's frightening how much information recruiters have about someone. Not only can they look at anyone's linkedin profile, there are additional services (not affiliated with linkedin... I think) that keep a copy of everyone's linkedin profile, even if you delete it. They cross reference your linkedin profile with meetup, facebook, etc, to get an ultimate…

Do you know what the common key was between these services? I bet it was email.

That's why I sign up for services with a custom email address, that is linkedin@domainname for linkedin, meetup@domainname for meetup, etc.

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#43

I recently got access to a LinkedIn recruiter-level account, and it's frightening how much information recruiters have about someone. Not only can they look at anyone's linkedin profile, there are additional services (not affiliated with linkedin... I think) that keep a copy of everyone's linkedin profile, even if you delete it. They cross reference your linkedin profile with meetup, facebook, etc, to get an ultimate…

    > talentbin.com
And the 500 million competitors to them. Cross-social-profile matching is pretty much a commodity service these days.

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#44
post #38

I recently got access to a LinkedIn recruiter-level account, and it's frightening how much information recruiters have about someone. Not only can they look at anyone's linkedin profile, there are additional services (not affiliated with linkedin... I think) that keep a copy of everyone's linkedin profile, even if you delete it. They cross reference your linkedin profile with meetup, facebook, etc, to get an ultimate…

I found it a little bit ironic that one of the companies protesting NSA surveillance and collection of user data.. was LinkedIn. https://www.reformgovernmentsurveillance.com/

Hardly ironic. Companies that utilize customer data are the most at risk from reactions to government surveillance. Many people are much, much less concerned with a company having their data (which they will use to show you more effective advertising - i.e. things you actually want) than with the government having their data - which they are using in the explicitly adversarial process of determining if you are a criminal.

When the government forces Facebook, Google and LinkedIn to be complicit in their compromise of user data, people can no longer trust these companies to safeguard it, and it hurts the companies' bottom lines.

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#45
post #22
post #14

With LinkedIn being as bad as people say, why do people sign up to it? Is there really no alternative? What is it that makes it compulsory to use? I have a very out of date profile, but rarely use it. For some reason I don't seem to get spammed. I don't see any use for it, so I don't visit.

I do "use" LinkedIn to get queries regarding opportunities and to keep in touch, but I'm not a frequent user. However my most interesting recent usage of LinkedIn was signing up to pay for Inmail in order to be able to message a few high level executives at DHL to complain when a delivery was stuck in limbo. One day later and two Senior VPs (out of 3 I messaged) in different offices had told their staff to sort it an…

Thanks for sharing. This is a great use for LinkedIn, and one I had never heard of. I'd always heard about access to executives for sales and research purposes, but not for kick starting customer service.

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#46
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do "use" LinkedIn to get queries regarding opportunities and to keep in touch, but I'm not a frequent user. However my most interesting recent usage of LinkedIn was signing up to pay for Inmail in order to be able to message a few high level executives at DHL to complain when a delivery was stuck in limbo. One day later and two Senior VPs (out of 3 I messaged) in different offices had told their staff to sort it an…

That's really interesting. I've noticed that complaining on Twitter often helps things get moving when the telephone support is giving you the run-around, but I always assumed that was because I was airing their dirty laundry publicly. Seems like complaints via non-standard routes work even when private...

I think it worked because it still is unusual. The people I contacted presumably rarely hear directly from customers, and are so less likely to be "inoculated" against seeing those kind of complaints as normal.

Presumably most people want to do the right thing for their customers, but frontline staff often don't have authority, and soon gives up escalating systemic complaints (or even gets punished if the continue to bring it up), so if you don't get help right away the solution is often to find a way of bypassing the layer(s) that are powerless or have given up trying, and you find people that often do care deeply when they get to hear about such problems, but rarely do hear.

The moment something like this becomes common, these people will retreat from LinkedIn, or LinkedIn will take measures to protect them (win-win for LinkedIn: Let extra busy people make it more expensive to reach them)

I've used Twitter too, as well as my blog + Twitter. A few years ago I'd problem cancelling my cable subscription, and ended up getting a call from an assistant to the CEO of Virgin Media on the Saturday morning following a posting on the Friday. But in the case of DHL, Twitter too was a dead end - they seem to not care much about their Twitter feed.

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#47

If you don't have a linkedin account I highly recommend the experience of setting one up. It is horrible. You are upsold at every step of the process. Reminded at every step that you should import your contacts and just forced to use horrible defaults every step of the way. After you have an account you'd think the sane defaults would be to not spam you with every little thing that happens on the site. Nope, you manu…

>I don't know about you but if there was some other network for professionals to showcase profiles I would jump on that immediately. What features would make this a killer? We are working on something that is in this general space and have a few ideas, including the ideas that started the project, but I'm curious what other pain points you can enumerate. What would be a perfect linkedin substitute for you?

Coming at it from a slightly different angle (this is my sector)...

The big problem with LinkedIn is that it's a Jobseeker Database masquerading as a social network. They make their money by selling you to recruiters. That's the central cause of almost all the behaviour people don't like. The second part of that is that the social network part - the stickiness angle - really isn't a natural part, which is why it's so irritating that it wants to notify you that someone you worked with once published an article.

I'm afraid I don't know the killer features or the solution, but that's the root issue.

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat. Why is it limited to Germany?

Full disclosure: I'm a german web developer. Xing is made by a Perl company in Germany, specifically Hamburg. Having had some experience with other web-related companies, most german software is written with german content first, and little thought spent on localization, since serving an audience outside of germany is risky in that it means a lot of the company (support, etc.) has to be duplicated first, and it might…

AFAIK, it's actually a Rails shop these days. (I know people who work there.)

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#49
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know about you but if there was some other > network for professionals to showcase profiles I would > jump on that immediately XING?

Viadeo is more popular in France.

Viadeo is worst. I have closed my account like three of four times ... they keep reopening it and spamming me. If I receive another mail from them, I will complain to the CNIL.

Re: Creepy visitor tracking using Linkedin

#50
post #42

I recently got access to a LinkedIn recruiter-level account, and it's frightening how much information recruiters have about someone. Not only can they look at anyone's linkedin profile, there are additional services (not affiliated with linkedin... I think) that keep a copy of everyone's linkedin profile, even if you delete it. They cross reference your linkedin profile with meetup, facebook, etc, to get an ultimate…

Do you know what the common key was between these services? I bet it was email. That's why I sign up for services with a custom email address, that is linkedin@domainname for linkedin, meetup@domainname for meetup, etc.

Will work for now but you are still following a pretty straightforward 'pattern' that the algorithms can easily catch up with if algorithm authors wanted them to. (i.e. if too many people start doing this)

I guess using random@domainname may work better?

Post reply on HN