LinkedIn's Add Connection settlement | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn's Add Connection settlement

addconnectionssettlement.com

39 pointsilluminated25 comments

So I get a list of "people you may know" on LinkedIn. Some of those are just email addresses, no profile; but you won't see that unless you try to click on it, only to find that it's not a link (but the "(+)" button to add still works). The ones that aren't clickable are those of people who don't have LI profiles. So this begs the question: why is LI showing me these suggestions? If I add that person, will they now get an email from me, asking them to join LI? And where did LI get these email addresses, since I most definitely did not give them access?

LI's shady practices just never cease.

My experience of LinkedIn has descended from marginally diverting (2005-2009) to a pointless recruiter circle-jerk (2010-2013) to an endless source of scam sales-lead invites from profiles of dubious credibility (2014-2015).

I disabled all notifications long ago.

It is possible that this is the unavoidable fate of any professional-oriented social networking service. Nonetheless the value of LinkedIn to me is now effectively zero. I don't know anyone who respects their brand, and I'm left wondering if there's a gap in the market; c.f. Facebook vs Myspace ca.2008.

There is a very small gap. LinkedIn had a short run as an email address harvesting operation. Now they cost me about a second a month, between the time that one of their messages makes it through my spam filter and the time I mark it as spam. Something not called LinkedIn could probably harvest a few more addresses before becoming just as hated as LinkedIn.

(Side note: I just got an "invitation" "from" someone I met this year in a completely non-job context. I'll ask the next time I see him, but I'm pretty sure he did not explicitly ask me to whatever-the-heck in LinkedIn. More likely, he made the mistake of uploading his address book.)

It's always fun when this happens to someone who has production's on-call address in their contacts list.

There really is nothing quite like having the "everything is on fire" pager ring at 3:25 AM only to find that someone wants emergency_oncall@company.com to join their linkedin network.

LinkedIn is probably the mainstream site to use the absolute most amount of dark UI patterns.

Maybe one of your contacts gave them those email addresses.

Then why would they not have accounts?

I think what Buge is saying is that some user X used the "find my contacts from my email" feature. Linkedin hoovered all emails (and potential conversations) and built a database of consisting of emails and conversations which looks like:

nadams sent email to moron4hire etc..

But moron4hire does not have a linkedin account, so what linkedin will do when I sign in I'll see the ability to add that email as a connection (and thus send them an email asking them to sign up for a linkedin account?).

I'm just guessing - for all I know linkedin has a crystal ball in the backroom.

More info at Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-settles-class-action...

All I could think about was how funny this would be if it turned out to be a recruiting firm gathering user details and the lawsuit was fake.

> If the pro rata amount is so small that it cannot be distributed in a way that is economically feasible, payments will be made, instead, to Cy Pres Recipients selected by the Parties and approved by the Court.

The cy pres structure here is a clever twist, but it's still lame and might be a solid ground for objection and appeal: http://www.forbes.com/sites/wlf/2014/11/26/seventh-circuit-c....

$3.2 million to the lawyers. The original plaintiff? $1,500.

As per usual, the lawyers get everything. How long and hard did it really take to put forth this case? How many hours were spent on it?

We outsourced law and privacy policy enforcement to private individuals. Complaining private enforcers want to be paid, particularly when they essentially take cases on spec, is ridiculous. Unless, of course, it's a backdoor way to oppose enforcement of the laws at all.

It's down. Cached version:

https://archive.is/amjVh

I would be more impressed if the massive form didn't "have an error" after I filled out the whole thing.

So I got this email, so I'm probably eligible. But, I was wondering, do you think being part of this settlement may affect my professional career? Like, making companies avoid me since I may be a lawsuit-hunter?

Duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10321678

The "duplicate" links to the LinkedIn's notice about the settlement, but there are more resources on the address above.

Can someone post a TL;DR

LinkedIn allows you to auto invite your email contacts to join linkedIn and they sort of ask you to confirm sending the invite but what they dont make clear is that if the person does not accept they will send 2 follow up invite emails that contain your name telling them to join linkedIn. This settlement claims that it is violation of your likeness to use your name to invite new users without your permission which you only gave for the first email. LinkedIn has decided to settle the case instead of letting it go to trial.

Dont get too excited the payout seems to be set at minimum of $10. So if you want to waste your time signing up for this class action you can get $10 from linkedIn because almost certainly they will reach the max number of complainants and end up only paying each person the minimum. Anyone with a linkedIn account that has ever sent out and invite to join linkedIn qualifies for this suit

> almost certainly they will reach the max number of complainants and end up only paying each person the minimum.

it's like some kind of crazy realized game theory problem.

Is there a way to see if this feature was used? I use LinkedIn so sparsely, I don't know if I ever sent any emails out to anyone.

Those e-mails used to annoy the hell out of me. I tried unchecking every box I could to get them to stop but they still came. I ultimately resorted to blacklisting LinkedIn's IP ranges on my mail server to get them to stop.

Since you have your own mail server, I bet a Procmail recipe that forwards said emails to either support or the CEO's email address would get their attention.

LinkedIn? Get with the times! Anyone who's anyone uses Peeeple for all their opt-out social networking needs.

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