Linkedin Sneaking In

Technology


I’m a Linkedin user and I like their website and services. I am just a little disappointed that they sneaked in some default privacy settings that allowed them to display my name and photo in their so-called “targeted social advertising”.

Earlier this week, I was doing my usual Linkedin chores (managing groups and community stuff). After some minutes of trying out the Linkedin poll feature, I noticed that there is a catchy advertisement at the lower right pane. And lo and behold the ad sported my name and photo 🙂

I checked it with a teammate and he said Linkedin is offering some ad space now. So I just tweeted about it

And I paid not much attention to it after.

Fast-forward today, my colleague Rik Ferguson of CounterMeasures Blog posted an interesting article about Linkedin doing some Facebook-ish moves. It seems Linkedin is really using members name and photo on their targeted social advertising. Rik further described that there are several privacy options the Linkedin added the default values are set and freely:

Linkedin may use my name, photo in social advertising

I immediate contacted Rik and told him that I think I may have experienced this Linkedin privacy snafu myself and showed him my twitter timeline. I also logged in to Linkedin and fixed my privacy settings.

How to fix this Linkedin privacy issue:
Step 1. Mouse over your Name at the upper right pane, and click Setting

Step 2. Go to your account settings and look for the Privacy controls.

Step 3. Choose Manage Social Advertising, uncheck the tick box and save settings.

Step 4. Choose Turn on/off enhanced advertising, uncheck the tick box and save settings

I guess that’s all for now. Hope you find this post helpful and informative.

If you want to know more details kindly check Rik’s post on CounterMeasures Blog.

Lastly, some disclosure:
I work at Trend Micro. The post I have here in menardconnect.com are my own personal views (and does not reflect the views/stand of my employer).
To know more about me, kindly visit my about page. To know about this blog’s full disclosure policy kindly visit my disclosure page

How about you? Do you have a Linkedin account too? If yes, have you checked your privacy settings recently?

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