VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Mike Harrison · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 9:02 am Post subject:

Strike Two on LinkedIn:

Following my last post in this thread, I removed my business email address from my LinkedIn profile, and made sure all of the sync options were disabled (as they had been from day one). That was back in June.

I yesterday used my business email account to reach out to someone in Europe with whom I haven't been in any type of contact for over five years. This person is not now nor has even been a LinkedIn contact.

And, when I logged into my LinkedIn account this morning, guess whose name appeared at the top of the "People You May Know" list?

This is no coincidence. Google the phrase "linkedin reading emails" and you'll see I am far from alone in my suspicions; several others have apparently filed lawsuits.

I've now removed the link to my LinkedIn profile that had been part of my email signature, and I've removed that same link from my website.

There are over a half-dozen INVISIBLE (a Hobo Tounge

-related) files on my computer that contain "linkedin" within their contents (not the filename). These are not browser history or bookmark files. Not text, Word or Hobo Laughing

F files that I created. Not downloaded files from other people.

WHAT ELSE is LinkedIn accessing on our computers?

Do I value what LinkedIn offers? Yes. Do I value my privacy and sound business principles far more?

To quote that female comic from Alaska: "You betcha."
_________________
Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

Gregory Best · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 11:22 am Post subject:

We are going back to BlackBerry which is much more secure and allows you to set individual permission for a Hobo Tounge

s. I am considering dumping FB and LinkedIn. I still see no benefit to me. I do not want to life mt life online. I don't do selfies and don't share things with the world. I worry much more about corporate spying than government spying.

Our freedom and privacy are precious. We've fought wars to protect them and now we give that up do easily. The younger folks live online without realizing the consequences of what they are giving up.
_________________
Gregory Best

greg@gregorybest.com

melissa eX · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 12:47 pm Post subject:

Under pain of a tongue lashing from Kafer over resurrecting a month old thread, I just came across this while searching for something. Seems Mike isn't the only one who thinks LI is creepy.

http://www.interactually.com/linkedin-creepiest-social-network/

ccpetersen · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:12 pm Post subject:

Thank you for sharing that. I've found those controls and tweaked them.
_________________
Charter Member: Threadjackers Local 420

Lee Gordon · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 3:08 pm Post subject:

LinkedIn definitely exhibits some weird behavior. Early on, I recall an admonition from them to connect only with people you actually knew personally in real life. I believe that message still appears on the site. Nevertheless, the vast majority of their "People You May Know" suggestions are people I not only don't know, I have no idea in what context I should know them. As cited in the article, I do get suggestions for people with the same name as ones I do know, but are not those people. I suppose that could be because there are literally hundreds of other people named Lee Gordon who have LinkedIn accounts (a search returns 596 results; compare that to a search for "Melissa Exelberth," which, as expected, returns only one). Some of those other Lee Gordons have, in fact, shown up among the suggestions, but I do have links to a number of them on my own website. Several suggestions LinkedIn gives me are indeed for people I know, but who, unfortunately, are deceased.
_________________
Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

Mike Harrison · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 7:08 pm Post subject:

Thanks, Melissa, for finding and posting the link to that article. I knew I wasn't alone. As I said in an earlier post, just Google "LinkedIn reading my email" (or similar) and watch what comes up.

This is evil. Corporations don't do things just "for their customers;" they do things because they profit or in some way benefit from it. That's what's going on here.

After the last time I posted about this on LinkedIn (to the public, not just my connections), *any* post I made from that point was being moderated. There was a warning on my profile to that effect, but it claimed I had made a post that was deemed questionable by a group, although it didn't name the group. I don't make posts with questionable content in groups. The *only* posts that would be considered "questionable" were the two public posts I made about what I discovered about LinkedIn.

I am seriously debating whether to reach out to those LinkedIn contacts I value most to let them know what I've learned, assure them that I intend to change nothing about our relationship, and then cancel my LinkedIn account. I would also considering going a step further by backing up all visible content on my computer (applications, documents, etc.) and then wiping the hard drive (thereby deleting all cookies, etc.) completely before reloading it.

Why? I'll say it again: If LinkedIn is accessing contact information on our computers, what else are they accessing?

They are evil.
_________________
Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

Frank F · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 7:21 pm Post subject:

I guess I am a bit different in my thinking than many here. My thoughts are you "should NEVER post anything or write anything which you would not want your Mother to see or hear".

Taking it to the business side of the brand/marketing equation; one should always, ALL OF THE TIME, FOREVER, In Perpetuity... take care of your brand.

Social networking has it's pro's and many con's. Many of the con's have to do with the idea of scamming the users of networking sites. Linked-In is no different from Facebook, twitter, or....

If you are expecting privacy with social media, you are living in the wrong century and believe in Easter Bunny.

F2
_________________
Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

Mike Harrison · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 7:34 pm Post subject:

Frank, I know that what I post on social media will be around forever. That's why I purposely choose to limit what information I post and include in my online profiles.

WHAT I DO NOT EXPECT is that entities such as LinkedIn find ways to access data on MY COMPUTER.

That is something NO ONE signs on for.
_________________
Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

Frank F · Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2014 9:21 pm Post subject:

That is why I am not a social (media) butterfly.

The key to stopping this intrusion is for everyone to just say "H#$&L NO". Stop letting the the social media invaders enter your life. Do not socialize on any of these sites... EXCEPT of course - The VO-BB!
What if you started a social media site and no one chose to socialize - except those who are not intelligent enough to say "no"?

Start saying "NO" now!

Frank F
_________________
Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

chrisvoco · Club 300 Joined: 14 Mar 2014 Posts: 380 Location: Local

Mike, if you don't mind me asking, in what particular directory(ies) did you find these suspicious files?
_________________
Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

Mike Harrison · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 5:23 am Post subject:

I agree, Frank!

Chris, I didn't find suspicious files. What I found was, on two separate occasions (occasions where I noticed; who knows how many other times it may have happened), the day after communicating – outside of LinkedIn – with two separate people; people I was not connected with in any way on LinkedIn, their names just happened to show up in the list of "People You May Know" on my LinkedIn home page. Out of the millions of LinkedIn subscribers, these two names just "coincidentally" appear just one day after I communicated with them.

And, after Googling "linkedin reading my email," I learned I was far from alone in making that discovery... and some of those search results go back a couple of years. Also, from the link posted by Melissa a couple of posts back in this thread, the author of that linked article also sees something far beyond simple coincidence. And he states that his attempts to get an explanation from LinkedIn resulted in stonewalling.

Innocent parties will be completely forthcoming. Guilty parties will do their best to hide their tracks.

(Editorial) It is for this very reason that I have never and will never trust any of my data in "the cloud." Even if there is no deceitful intent, trusting data storage without having direct and SOLE control over it is pure folly. And those who sign confidentiality agreements (aka NDAs) with clients and put material covered by that agreement on the cloud are asking for trouble.
_________________
Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

chrisvoco · Club 300 Joined: 14 Mar 2014 Posts: 380 Location: Local

What I found rather odd was that a handful of my *wife's* business contacts showed up on the people-you-may-know suggestions linkedin presented to me some days ago. These folks I've met in person, but never corresponded with online (why would I?) *directly*.

My assumption is that most of this kind of thing is - while still certainly shady - because people permit their various profiles access. My wife's contacts on occasion comment on her facebook posts, for example, and I sometimes do, too. A single overly social contact could be The Toxic Link, I'd say. One of the suggestions was a person that had commented on one of my wife's posts just a day or two prior. I had commented on that same post. The post was, of course, something silly and irrelevant - I think it was tips on cleaning front-loading clothes washers (likely a hint for me, but that's another topic altogether...)

You said there were several hidden files on your computer mentioning linkedin. I was hoping to get a bit of detail on approximately where you found them so I can try to recreate what you're seeing.
_________________
Finally, Ford stops starting to say things and starts.

Mike Harrison · Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 8:05 am Post subject:

I trashed those hidden files that contained "linkedin" back then. So far, I haven't noticed any problems, assuming those files may have had other genuinely essential data.
_________________
Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

Lee Gordon · Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2014 12:46 am Post subject:

I wonder how many of us show up on "People You May Know" lists because our email addresses are contained in the address books of people who click on all the "What 1980s Hair Band Are You?" or "Think of a Vegetable that Doesn't Have a 'Q' in its Name" or similar "quizzes" on Facebook. All that click-bait that even smart people seem to fall for exists only for data mining -- or worse. I wish all the people who are smart enough to solve the difficult-at-first-glance-but-not-really-that-challenging math problems were also smart enough to not be lured into playing along.

By the way, I saw this article from someone who seems to think LinkedIn is actually one of the good guys of social media. I'm not sure if he's entirely right, but it would be nice to think so.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/homaycotte/2014/10/07/linkedin-data-rights/
_________________
Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

melissa eX · Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2014 3:31 pm Post subject:

Oh lookee here:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/10/forget-linkedin-conspire-taps-email-to-be-your-next-online-networking-tool/