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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

LinkedIn quietly continues to be one of the creepiest products around. I still remember their dark patterns around obtaining your contact list[1]. It's not surprising that little has changed under the new Microsoft which has equally little respect for user privacy and choice.

[1] https://www.quora.com/Does-LinkedIn-access-your-email-or-con...

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LinkedIn started out seeming OK, IMHO, then got conspicuously creepy, and that was before the sale to MS.

I deleted LinkedIn as soon as it started seeming creepy, since I didn't need to hear from recruiters, at the time.

I'm currently resisting LinkedIn, and trying to skim angel.co, which doesn't seem too creepy. (Though many of the hiring startup blurbs on there are creepy, like "What Up is disrupting at the intersection of blockchain and marketing insights from intimate medical devices!".)

I have suggested connection on linkedin that is my wife's maiden name. It's super creepy. We have zero shared connections.

Jane Smith?

Perhaps your wife's family frequently checks your profile?

In the relationship graph that Linkedin builds, suggested connections could be based on a lot of things other than shared connections. Just speculating here, but it could be based on shared email address, shared IP address, shared physical address, membership in same groups, linkedin messages by you and wife to other people within 1-2 degree of either of you .. or some combination thereof for higher confidence.

Creepy is exactly the right word.

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