LinkedIn Invites Gone Wild: How To Keep Close With Exes and Strangers

sholto writes "An aggressive expansion strategy by LinkedIn has backfired spectacularly amid accusations of identity fraud. Users complained the social network sent unrequested invites from their accounts to contacts and complete strangers, often with embarrassing results. One man claimed LinkedIn sent an invite from his account to an ex-girlfriend he broke up with 12 years ago who had moved state, changed her surname and her email address. ... 'This ex-girlfriend's Linked in profile has exactly ONE contact, ME. My wife keeps getting messages asking 'would you like to link to (her)? You have 1 contact in common!,' wrote Michael Caputo, a literary agent from Massachussetts."

Fraud

[schneidafunk]

How is this not considered criminal activity? Could LinkedIn just be the target of a spoofing campaign? I have a hard time believing they could be so stupid.

Re:Fraud

[i kan reed]

My previous employer made me get a linkedin account. It is the single most spammy thing I've ever signed up for.
"Do you know former employee of customer of previous previous employer?" Fuck. Off.

I have no trouble believing this

[gaudior]

LinkedIn has always seemed shady to me. I joined a few years ago, and got inundated with requests from people who seemed to do nothing with their time but offer to show me how to accumulate linked-in followers. My ex and I were simultaneously suggested to each other as contacts, probably because we still share some friends in common. Neither of us requested anything. I think the whole thing is just another social-media wank-fest, like twitter or google+.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird. I use LinkedIn both as a recruiting tool and as a connection tool with recruiters (I get between 3 and 5 calls a week from it) and I haven't seen anything of the sort.

Maybe this is because I took the time to disable such notifications? I don't know but I'd be willing to bet that's the cause.

LinkedIn is like any other social network; people must take the time to protect their online identities and communications from the tool.

Re:Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Linkedin is exactly like the business culture it was meant to serve.

Sleazy, smarmy, greedy, dishonest, sycophantic, treacherous, fraudulent. Simply the core values of American business.

LinkedIn is annoying

[Okian Warrior]

I attend an AI group [meetup.com] in Boston (for about two years ongoing) and I've learned to not give out my E-mail for this very reason.

Giving an E-mail address results in them entering it into LinkedIn, which results in me being spammed forever by that system. People I've never heard of send messages "I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn" (some store owner in a distant city).

The message has a convenient opt-out link, whose page is hilariously ambiguous:

"You're receiving these emails because a LinkedIn member invited you to become a part of their professional network. By clicking the "Unsubscribe" button, you will stop receiving these emails"

Two checkboxes below are labelled "Invitations to connect" and "Reminders to connect".

It took me awhile to realize that you have to *check* the boxes to stop receiving E-mails, instead of *uncheck* the boxes which is how pretty-much all other sites handle it.

I've never seen a compelling need for this LinkedIn service. Sure, if a member could manage their contacts effectively it might be useful, but the system auto-encourages bigger and more comprehensive webs... which are at the same time less and less useful.

My impression is that many of the people on the site are "salesmen" types, who think contact circles indicate how impressive they are. Professional networks just for the purpose of having professional networks.

Thanks, but no thanks. The address-book in my E-mail client works just fine. It even lets me add notes about the person - where I met them, what they do, &c.

It also doesn't hold my contact info up for everyone to see.

Re:Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not reasonable to have to protect my "online identity and communications" from a tool that I have purposefully decided NOT to use.

Re:Fraud

[Raistlin77]

Linkedin is exactly like the business culture it was meant to serve.

Sleazy, smarmy, greedy, dishonest, sycophantic, treacherous, fraudulent. Simply the core values of global business.

FTFY

Linked in has gone way downhill

[Registered Coward v2]

Early on, it was a good way to reconnect with old friends and the groups actually had decent discussions. Most groups have devolved into a few people arguing amongst themselves (one even has become one person talking to themselves)and a place for people to self promote. For a while there many posts I saw were form bogus job offers and SEO spammers. I still use it to search for old friends but if I get a request from an unknown person I refuse it.

Re:The usual sloppy reporting

[tnk1]

Yes, it does have a point. That's how the Google recruiter found me, without me soliciting them first.

It's much like any other social media site, but it does have the one saving grace that you can actually find jobs with it. Thus, it is the only social media site that I put any effort into whatsoever.

Still, just like any other social media site, you would be a fool to give them anything but your most tailored information, and certainly not your raw contact list.

Re:maybe you could try turning off email notificat

[Rob the Bold]

Second hit for "linkedin email preferences." You're on Slashdot, and you don't know how to do this?

If he only joined LinkedIn because he was forced to, I can understand not caring enough to customize it to his liking. Especially since "his liking" would be "not having it at all". In that case, getting rid of the unwanted email by sending it to the spam bucket is a perfectly rational solution.

My question is how necessary is LI these days?

[nblender]

I still don't have a LI account (nor facebook nor twitter, nor g+)... I'm being told that being on LinkedIn is more or less obligatory if I want to have a reasonable chance of not being ignored by a hiring manager or HR drone. I'm being told this by colleagues and friends, a few of whom are hiring managers. I've been operating under the assumption that my reputation is enough to get me hired (as has been the case for at least 25 years) but what I'm hearing now is that if I don't show up on LinkedIn, my resume gets tossed.. I'm offended by the very idea and like to console myself that I probably don't want to work for anyone who filters resumes this way... Unfortunately, I'm approaching my sunset years and may not be able to afford to restrict my employment opportunities should I suddenly find myself unemployed.

Re:People are using the address book feature

[obarel]

I'm pretty sure you're right.

I hardly pay attention to most of what I read online, especially when I'm on LinkedIn (I'm trying not to look at adverts, so I miss the content as well).

I found myself once entering my LinkedIn password into some "password" input box, which, as I wasn't paying much attention, I thought was LinkedIn's "your session has expired". However, it rejected the password, which made me look again. I was entering my password into the "we've got your email address, now just give us the password" box. As I have different passwords for different things, no problem. But I'm sure that some people use the same password for everything, and suddenly LinkedIn sends an email to every contact on their gmail account.