Comment by abitsios | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abitsios | Hacker News Reader

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Really? That's something I haven't heard of from a technical person in a very long while (if ever). LinkedIn's public image from the last 2 years:

* 2012 hack. 6.5M unsalted SHA1 password hashes leaked [1]

* 2013 Acquires Pulse, forces existing users to create a LinkedIn account. Users are pissed [2]

* 2013 LinkedIn Intro. In case you missed it, it was an iOS app that changed your mail settings to proxy your incoming mail through linkedin's servers in order to inject a frame with business-card-like CTAs. In the meantime, this naturally gave them instant access to all your emails. Massive privacy implications.

* 2013 LinkedIn Intro, 3 days after release. Jordan Wright shows a CSS-based phishing attack: security implications as well [3]

My personal experience with LinkedIn:

* My profile info is available to premium users without my consent

* Premium users can spam me without my consent.

* "Who viewed your profile" feature. Unbelievable.

* Constant contact requests from random people. I can't turn their email notifications off entirely (introductions are mandatory). EDIT: I was mistaken - <sarcasm>the process is very straightforward [5]</sarcasm>

* They seem to be in the business of intentionally misleading people (2011) [4]

So, personally I'm the furthest you can get from being a fan and I can't imagine what you were a fan of. They're top ranking on my shit list.

[1] http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/06/06/linkedin-member-password...

[2] http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2306932/linkedin-in...

[3] http://jordan-wright.github.io/blog/2013/10/26/phishing-with...

[4] http://www.michielgaasterland.com/online-reputation/try-link...

[5] http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-disable-all-of-linkedi...

When I sign up for a website, I do not give them information that I'm not comfortable being public. if you don't like it, don't use it.

I'm a fan of LinkedIn replacing the Rolodex. LinkedIn makes networking a whole lot easier. Maybe all your "technical" friends don't need to network, but I do.

Why did you create a profile? If you don't want to connect with your professional network, if you don't care who looked at your profile (and are even spooked about it), if you (likely) don't use it to find people... What do you think is the purpose of having a LinkedIn account?

> Why did you create a profile?

1) The intent was to separate my personal and professional social presence: Facebook is no place for doing or talking business.

2) I was looking for work at the time.

3) I tend to try things out

> If you don't want to connect with your professional network, I never said that.

> if you don't care who looked at your profile Whether I care or not, I don't think the network should be reporting views to profile owners. I don't think I am alone in this either: Can you think of any other social network that does this? Would you go back to Facebook if it reported your every view to your contacts? Of course I'm spooked by this.

> What do you think is the purpose of having a LinkedIn account?

Not sure. I can eliminate a few things:

- Not finding employees. I'm supposed to pay for premium to be able to search properly and message people, and then (given my personal experience as a user) my message will be lost in the noise of irrelevant offers (who the hell thinks a PHP developer would be remotely interested/suitable for UI/UX, C++, Technical Writer, ... ? Mass mailers do). SO careers and behance has served me very well instead.

- Not finding work. Can I even separate my contacts into people-that-can-see-that-im-looking and people-that-shouldnt nowadays? If so, I'll call it progress. (My boss shouldn't know if I'm looking ffs)

- Not organizing contacts. One flat list of people?

- Not content. The majority of content I got to see was PR/HR kind of fluff that was almost exclusively cross-posted from elsewhere. None of my professional contacts actually generate content - that seems to happen on Twitter and G+.

I guess I use it as another online CV.

> I guess I use it as another online CV.

> I don't think the network should be reporting views to profile owners. Of course I'm spooked by this.

So you're essentially freaked out that a prospective employer or business contact is looking at your CV.

> Not finding employees.

HR departments are paying for those premium accounts because they use it to find employees. Are you suggesting they don't know what they are doing?

> Not finding work. Can I even separate my contacts into people-that-can-see-that-im-looking and people-that-shouldnt nowadays?

You can update your profile without broadcasting the change to your contacts, and you can answer job offerings privately too.

A lot of people use it as the de-facto rolodex: you can learn a lot about who you're going to meet without being "stalkish" because people expect to be searched (well, not you apparently). You can use it to contact people in specific positions (cold call), I've done it with great success to get past unresponsive customer services.

Many people don't agree with their growth tactics, but few would say it's useless.

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