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LinkedIn Spam Lawsuit Can Continue

Posted by timothy on from the unrepentant-spammers dept.

Charliemopps (1157495) writes "A lawsuit filed in September 2013 in the Northern District of California alleged that LinkedIn misled its users about the number of times it would attempt to invite their contacts using their name. LinkedIn tried to get the suit dismissed but Thursday Judge Lucy Koh ruled the suit can continue."

13 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. they become aggresive... by sponse · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...once they build a community.
    They "offer" you to be in contact with all e-mail address book every time you login.
    They also send you mails that looks as if contact of your contacts was trying to reach you.
    This is bad behavior.
    I hope they get into troubles.

    1. Re:they become aggresive... by istartedi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I've been ignoring them for years. I've always suspected that when a co-worker who I haven't corresponded with in years (and wasn't really buddy-buddy, juet a co-worker) tried to get back in touch with me, they wouldn't do so by recommending me for a particular skill. I mean... really? "Hey, I was wondering what he was up to the last few years, so I decided to recommend him for one of the skills he has listed on his profile". Who thinks like that?

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    2. Re:they become aggresive... by JaneTheIgnorantSlut · · Score: 2

      I get similar recommendations from time to time. Not from close friends but rather from former coworkers that I was not close to. Considering that I retired almost two years ago, they are most certainly spam.

    3. Re:they become aggresive... by kwark · · Score: 2

      And this is why I reject any email linked to linkedin. It surely felt more then 3 times semi random people (with who I might have corresponded on some mailinglists) try to invite you.

    4. Re:they become aggresive... by Zeromous · · Score: 2

      That's not how it works. They are presented with an interface which asks about random connections:

      Does JaneTheIgnorantSlut know about:

      VMWare?
      C/C++?
      Object Oriented Programming?
      Linux?

      They click on all the things they consider you as "knowing" and there it is.

      --
      ---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
  2. PCworld doesn't honor unsubscribes by Stan92057 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    PCworld doesn't honor my unsubscribes as well, E-harmony is a mega spammer, Wellsfargo doesn't Honor my unsubscribes. I have tried numerous times to use the unsubscribe links, taken screen shots of the successful unsubscribes. What do I do now? reporting to spamcop is useless Oh and Comcast spectator refuses to honor my unsubscribes too. All proven with screen shots Any advice??

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none
  3. Re:That's nothing. by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, me, too. I found one "offer" from linkdin that looked like it was sent by a guy whose craigslist ad for a cheap Mercedes I had responded to; I sent him a flame email calling him out for it.

    Now, I look like the a**hole....

    Thanks, linkdin. NOT.

  4. Re:That's nothing. by CRCulver · · Score: 2

    You likely have some relationship to them, you've simply forgotten. One name that I often see on LinkedIn spam invitations puzzled me, but eventually I ascertained that years before, while travelling in another part of the world, I contacted his dentist office to inquire about prices. Never met him, never even had e-mail contact with him again, but my e-mail persisted on his end long enough to get vacuumed up by LinkedIn.

  5. My experience with LinkedIn spam by Hans+Adler · · Score: 5, Informative

    I once got LinkedIn invitations in the name of a American who was totally unknown to me. When it finally occurred to me to search my correspondence for his name, I learned that this was a banned Wikipedia editor who had written one email to my professional email address to advertise his evidently psychosis-induced website. I had never answered.

    Here is my complete correspondence with LinkedIn after I found this out.

    ----- My first email to LinkedIn ----- Mon, 23 May 2011 08:37:04 UTC

    It is an impertinence to send "invitations" to people who are not even
    using your service, based on email address books of your users. It is
    almost criminal to repeat them periodically and not to include the
    usual spam opt-out links with these unsolicited messages.

    I keep getting such reminders "from" a person who I do not know and
    who was banned from Wikipedia for stalking and making threats.

    You *will* add the following email addresses to your "do not contact"
    list. Your confirmation that you have done so will be the last
    communication that I will receive from your servers.

    [my 2 email addresses deleted]

    ----- My second email to LinkedIn ----- Tue, 24 May 2011 10:58:27 UTC

    May I ask you to confirm that you have received the message below and
    that it will be handled. I am somewhat reluctant to go public with
    this incident.

    [quotation of my first email deleted]

    ----- First email from LinkedIn to me ----- Tue, 24 May 2011 11:03:21 UTC

    We’ve received your message and we’re working to get you an answer. If you have a Premium account or you’re a LinkedIn Ads customer, we strive to reply within 24 hours. For all other members, we do our best to respond within 48 hoursbut at times we do see delays. We’ll get back to you soon!

    [quotation of my *second* email deleted; I never received such a confirmation for my first email, even though this one looks like an auto-response]

    ----- Second email from LinkedIn to me ----- Wed, 25 May 2011 15:40:33 UTC [55 hours after my first email]

    Hi Hans,

    Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention.

    Per your request, the email addresses provided have been added to our "do not contact" list. You will no longer receive any email from LinkedIn or our members on these email addresses. If you decide at a later date that you want to set up a LinkedIn account, you will need to first contact us to have your email addresses removed from the “do not contact” list.

    If you have further questions, please feel free to reply to this message.

    [some first name deleted]
    LinkedIn Customer Service

    1. Re:My experience with LinkedIn spam by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Interesting

      LinkedIn has been my nemesis for years. 80% of my companies spam came form them and reeked havoc on the systems I maintain. I tried blocking their standard email addresses and then found that they were rotating email accounts to get around that very thing. They were acting just like any other spam troll I've dealt with. Finally I just blocked their entire domain. You can't even go to their site from inside our building anymore. Fuck em.

    2. Re:My experience with LinkedIn spam by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Informative

      btw, LinkedIn is the ONLY domain we blacklist. We don't even block porn sites. Just linkedin... that should tell you something.

  6. Speak of the devil. by Kaz+Kylheku · · Score: 3, Informative

    I just blocked LinkedIn today from being able to deliver SMTP to my mail server.

    Some linked-in dickhead (link sausage? haha) thought it was a good idea to send an invite to a public mailing list that I run.

  7. it seems their "spam" button does nothing by ruir · · Score: 2

    No matter how I flag certain messages as spam they keep appearing, and when I tried to open a ticket they played dumb. Also they open a lots of popup windows, I have to redefine my adblock rules constantly. Their prices are also outrageous, and they fully well know it, or else wouldnt show them in a shady way, payment 40 dollars/month for a year... In my privacy settings I disabled the permanent invites to others to endorse me, at least some advantage of having an account there.