Unfortunately, the german LinkedIn competitor (clone?) xing.com is getting less usable all the time. They try very hard to get you to subscribe and have crippled most of their functions (search etc) in reckless fashion.
Furthermore, they are very aggressive at sending any of these fees to collections if you dispute their shady tactics -- I personally know people who've been bitten by this.
It has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I always strongly suggest everyone to abandon them. What they do is technically legal, but definitely should not be. The company can't die soon enough.