Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is what the _current_ content says: One of the interesting dichotomies with compensation data is that many users want this information, but don’t want to have their individual data exposed or connected back to them. Salary information is personal to each of our members. With this in mind, and consistent with our Members First organizational philosophy, one of the first goals we established when we set out to emb…
Then when someone resubmits new data, how do they know that a previously submitted data point is now stale and shouldn't be used any more?
1. You submit a salary info struct, which includes time of submission. The struct does not contain a userId.
2. Your account's lastUpdatedSalaryDate gets updated, with only day/week/month level precision.
Someone with access to the entire database may be able to connect the two if the salary set for your job is small enough.
Then they weigh salary information based on how fresh the entry is. Stale entries don't get a good weight, and you updating your salary is just another info point, and it might go into another bucket if you got a title change (ex software eng -> sr. software eng.). If you got promoted, then the old salary info is probably still relevant for people in lower level positions.