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LinkedIn Hurries To Address Privacy Stumble
swandives writes "LinkedIn will make changes to a 'social advertising' feature that has been criticized for using members' names and photographs in advertisements on its website. Amid mounting criticism, the social networking service says it has been 'listening' to its users and 'could have communicated' its intentions with the new ad feature more clearly. As a result, it said, it will change how the advertisements appear. If a LinkedIn user 'follows' a company or service on LinkedIn, the ad feature can display the user's name and photo in advertisements for that company. LinkedIn said its goal was to deliver more useful ads, but some LinkedIn users complained it was a privacy violation, particularly because they have to opt out of the feature rather than opt in. It will be interesting to see whether the changes affect stocks, especially since the network's IPO in May, when shares closed at more than double the initial price, prompting concerns over another dot-com bubble."
I deleted my account months ago yet I still get emails and 'friend' requests from them. They are somehow worse than Facebook. I am not at all surprised by this move. They are incredibly user hostile.
Any info you put into a social networking site is then at the site's mercy. The same thing happens with Facebook, they'd roll out a new feature that would expose more of your private information unless you intervened.
And social networks rely on this erosion of privacy to grow, they need you to share more info, and the easiest way to do this is to expose "private" information you've entered and then ask for forgiveness.
And this is why I've finally decided that I'll never use any kind of centralized social networking system. If I were to use any such thing, it would be something like a private instance of Diaspora that I have full control over.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Seems like the best way to nip this one in the bud is to spam linkedin with fake profiles for serial killers, terrorists, and dictators, and then follow lots of companies. "Hi, I'm Jeffrey Dahmer and I approve of this product or service."
If I were to use any such thing, it would be something like a private instance of Diaspora that I have full control over.
So your suggestion is for everyone to create their own isolated "social network" which they have full control over, and hence are the only persons there? What about if you just don't put stuff on the internet that you don't want there?
Google+ vs. Facebook, and why Google+ will fail
I don't get LinkedIn, what's the point? Is it to keep in touch with old work colleagues? If so, then I either have their email address or contact them on Facebook. If I don't, then I guess I really didn't care about you when I worked with you all those years.
The only people who contact me on LinkedIn are recruitment agencies.
Summation 2
That's not how it works...your profile could be made accessible on others just the same as it would be on a centralized service, but your information would be privately controlled so there wouldn't be any oddly convenient privacy slip-ups. Here's a quick explanation:
http://www.gizmag.com/diaspora-open-source-social-network/15098/
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"And this is why I've finally decided that I'll never use any kind of centralized social networking system"
Same here... and you know what? **I can still communicate with my friends (via email, IM, webcams, VOIP)**. I can still keep track of what they're up to and vice versa, by talking to them.
I have yet to see any point behind giving all my personal information to some private company to profit from and sell to data miners, when I can do ALL THE SAME THINGS without giving up my privacy.
LinkedIn is a giant piece of shit. Here is their entire business model from what I can tell:
1. Some idiot that you emailed once 5 years ago gives the site their entire address book, including you.
2. LinkedIn emails you telling you to sign up to add that person to your network. You'll probably ignore it.
3. LinkedIn will email you about once a week "reminding" you about how John Q IGiveMyFuckingAddressBookToEverone added you to their network and you need to sign up to LinkedIn. THERE IS NO FUCKING OPT-OUT. EVER. YOU WILL GET THESE EMAILS FOR MONTHS UNLESS YOU SIGN UP.
4. You either get so annoyed with the reminders that you set up a filter sending them to the trash or you sign up to the site just so you don't get them anymore.
5. ??? (Obligatory, but in this case it's probably "They sell the information you give them to anyone who will pay for it.")
5. Profit.
If you have a support@example.com style email address, or are a member of a support email list, you will see these bullshit "networking" emails over and over again.
One for every John Q IGMFABTE who signs up and lets the site slurp their entire address book.
So yeah, I'm not a fan....
These social networks are the new AOL. They are for all the ignorant masses who have failed internet 101, and don't realize that you can communicate online without letting someone else profit from your information.
1995 AOL = 2011 Facebook
Same kinds of people. These are the people who showed up with the eternal september. They are never going away again, but if they move enough of their presence to facebook and linked-in and whatever, the rest of us can just ignore them in their walled gardens.
I don't have my photo on Linked In, just my name. But even if I did, I doubt they'd use my photo unless they were trying to show off how bad a competing site was. I'm your prototypical 40 year old geek, fat and balding. And even if they just used my name (Michael Anderson), well it's about the same as John Doe.
I guess I have the same safety system as my truck, too ugly and common.
Can we all just finally come out and state--once and forever--that the use of a person's photo and name in an *advertisement* (whether as an explicit endorsement or not, regardless of privacy policy or where the photo was uploaded, whether it was on a social network or search query) without the expressed consent of the person is a crime? At the least it strains copyright, it is a theft of service, and at most it constitutes conspiracy to commit fraud. Yes, fraud; because if a company is using my likeness without my knowledge in an attempt to create the impression amongst the people in my social circle that I endorse the advertised product or service, then that company is committing fraud upon my friends.
I don't care what the "Privacy Policy" states, criminal behavior is criminal behavior and cannot be policy'd around. Maybe these advertisers should start coming above board and offer to pay the idiots of their world for their photo and name on an opt-in, campaign-by-campaign basisthere'd be plenty of moron takers and we could use the jobs/extra income.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
I have never joined LinkedIn, but despite this I regularly get emails from them saying that so-and-so has just invited me to join their network. This in and of itself is understandable, but the problem lies in the fact that that they keep sending them and provide no way to opt-out. Is there some loophole in the CAN-SPAM act that says if some third-party gives a company your email, they can keep emailing you with no option for you to opt out?
For what it's worth, I did file a report with the FTC using the FTC Complaint Assistant - not that I expect that to make any difference.
... advantage? Any picture you post publicly is "at the mercy" of search engines, and your picture is then at the mercy of anyone with any scheme in mind to use you for advertising, a news article, or to make you look like a complete ass like at the link I just provided.
This is not a threat to privacy. A threat to privacy is pictures that you don't post publicly getting out into the public. The pictures you post publicly that are reused has nothing to do with privacy.
I would argue that the advantage of social media is to aggregate information via social graph rather than algorithm. That requires putting in information. Of course, people are often clueless about information they make public, and rather think it is all the service's fault. That may or may not be the case here, but I would guess that nobody is putting up sexting pictures on a business social site that are getting linked... which begs the question, what the hell were the picture uploaders thinking?
I8-D
I have accounts on several social networking sites. Facebook, Google+, more. I also joined Linkdin several years ago and out of the different sites I belong to find Linkdin annoying and useless. Specifically, I have never once gotten a date from there. So, to me it's as useless as a kick stand on a bass boat.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
on their privacy policy. When you look at the original blogpost the only thing that changes is the misuse of your profile photo. Someone can still recall which person on your network is following the advertiser.
Dear Muammar,
Hello, I am a former associate with Brown and Burnslaufner. Recently, our main clients MPAA and RIAA have severely decreased their use of Cease and Desist orders, thus causing my downsizing at the law firm. I would love for an opportunity to work with you.
I have experience in:
- Pain and Misery
- Beating opponents into submission using legal mumbo-jumbo that keeps the courts on "our" side.
- Persuading politicians that our actions are a crisis
- Raping profits from the elderly and children
I think I would be a fine addition to your endeavor, and I hope to hear from you soon. Should you restore telecommunications, I am willing to telecommute.
Sincerely,
Charles P. Vandersnort, III
I8-D
I can't get at the link right now, but in the discussion of this on BoingBoing.net, someone pointed out a number of other troubling opt-outs that LinkedIn had set for me.
When I stopped and considered the minor benefits I've had from LinkedIn, vs. the fact that I can no longer trust them, I cancelled my acount.
I never really got much out of LinkedIn anyway, so when I read about this change, I just cancelled my account. One less thing to deal with.
Now we'll see if they spend the next year harrassing me to come back...
Still doesn't help all that much if you have less-privacy-savvy friends that are inclined to post a lot of crap about you on THEIR social networking sites.
My solution: don't have any friends. You don't need a social network, and nobody will be posting about you!
It works a lot better if you realize there's no such thing as privacy on social networks.
First - a social network's goal is to get information. Lots of information. They do this by making it appealing for you to give that information.
Second - a large percentage of people are reluctant to give up certain amounts of information - perhaps their upbringing or other norms make it difficult.
To achieve both the first (get as much data as possible) and second (people may not willingly give up that data), they introduce "privacy settings" to offer the illusion that there's some concept of protection of that information, when in reality its to allow the site to sell that information. Sure Joe Average may not be able to see that data, but you can bet if you pay $$$ you can.
tl;dr - "don't post online what you don't want the world to know". There's no "privacy settings" in there - because they're irrelevant.
I have LinkedIn's outgoing ad emails automatically forwarded to their abuse department, which seems to have helped. I already had "social networking" turned off.
LinkedIn was polluted by "LinkedIn Open Networkers", who accept connections from anybody. It's the same losers who tried to get vast numbers of Facebook friends, years later and older. They're mostly "consultants", sales reps, or spammers.
I've tried asking questions on LinkedIn Answers a few times, with underwhelming results. Questions like "How can I ship 75Kg from Fujian, China to the Western US cheaply with a shipper who will take end to end responsibility" produced results less useful than Google.
It's pretty cynical of LinkedIn to somehow suggest that an ad is more useful to *me* because it has my friend's face in it. That's actually somewhat deceptive, given that a profile pic will be use if the person is following a company, which doesn't necessarily mean endorsing.
It definitely helps the advertiser, since they can possibly increase sales off this implied endorsement, but it's otherwise disingenuous.
"My God...it's full of trolls!"
How much longer before everyone finally gets this through their ADHD-addled brains?
This phrase should be banned from article summaries. It may as well read, "Here is where the news ends and my editorializing begins, whilst trying to maintain an aire of impartiality that only dumbasses will fall for"
... was the lack of notification that this change was taking place. The Register article I read about this social networking "feature" stated that users had been notified by email on June 23rd. Since I hadn't cleaned up my email for a couple of months, I decided to see if there was an email from LinkedIn telling me about this that I might not have paid close enough attention to. Nope. Nothing on 06/23 or anything for several days on either side of that date. I had the typical emails about updates to the groups I am a member of but nothing from LinkedIn telling me that there had been any changes made that would make me want to check my profile settings. That is the sort of activity by a web site that really pisses me off. It'll be a cold day in Hell before I set up ticklers to remind me to go to each and every web site where I have a user ID to see if the legalese in the Term of Service have changed recently. I'll delete the accounts before I do that.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
LinkedIn is the worst, sends spam after spam without ways to stop it, I wasted an hour trying to stop all the spam. They spam and spam. I hope Anonymous and Lulzsec beat them bloody.
So far, all I've received as spam, and one har-dee-har, "So all we get is 5 inches?"