VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Mike Harrison]

I'll say right up front that I haven't been using LinkedIn perhaps as much as I should, at least according to "experts." So that's one reason I was shocked to find yesterday that one of the "People I May Know" was someone I replied to only this past week after they first contacted me thru my GoDaddy email account which has, to my knowledge, no way of being synced with LinkedIn.

I've synced my LinkedIn account with *NOTHING*. I always err on the side of caution, and freely dispensing personal information and allowing access to my information is highest on the list of NO F**KING WAY. Too many data breaches on far too many levels (such as those involving debit and credit cards swiped at retail terminals) tell me our data is NOT safe outside of our immediate control.

As I scrolled through the list of "People I May Know," I found another person I'd been in contact with completely outside of LinkedIn.

Until I discovered this yesterday, my GoDaddy email account had been the primary (actually the only) email address in my LinkedIn account. I've now changed it to a new Yahoo account that will be used ONLY for LinkedIn communications.

And I should point out that I am NOT the first person to make this discovery. When I Googled the phrase "linkedin reading my email," I was very surprised to find a slew of others; some, apparently, who have sued LinkedIn over this.

This is what happens when you think you're playing it safe. I'd hate to think of what's going on with those who sync and share their contacts and other data.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Lee Gordon]

When I look at the "People You May Know" list, I see profiles that I am convinced LinkedIn has suggested only because the names are spelled or pronounced the same as some people I actually know, but are not those people. I have no idea where they come from, but it seems weird.
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

[Travis]

Hi Mike,

You seem to be suffering under the delusion that ANYTHING you do on the internet does not become public information.

It's been said by people-in-the-know that if you're worried about the NSA collecting info about you, you shouldn't even think about how much data Google has collected about you!

(Personally, I have come to the conclusion that the NSA is selling the information it collects to Google in order to finance its operation.)

I have known of a few people lately who became so paranoid ("paranoid" is not the right word, here, because their fears were not based on fiction) they got off the internet completely, only to return a few months later, resigned to the fact that one cannot exist today without it, but in the process, they have given up the last morsels of privacy.
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Travis
www.VOTalent.com

[Travis]

Ohhhh... And here's how it works...

I have responded to a post you put up in this forum. At some point, a web-crawler is going to compare our names, the topic of this forum, the fact that you've probably replied to another post somewhere having something to do with a similar industry, that someone with a similar or identical name is listed with an voiceover agent or p-to-p site, and the fact that you bought some diet-pepsi and Kleenex at the local supermarket using your supermarket discount-club -card or credit card (and soon, that your face was scanned while waiting at checkout) and a "connection" was established between us.

As a result, at some point, you will show up as "people you may know" in MY Linkedin, and Facebook, along with a few other people who also bought diet-pepsi and Kleenex that I have no connection with. - As "data-mining" improves, there are fewer and fewer of those people.

Because so much information is being collected about so many people, much of this simply becomes "noise" to most data applications and people. That's the only real protection you have left - safety in numbers.

In the past this data was always available - If you've ever been involved in a police investigation or private investigator situation, you would have been amazed at how much someone could find out about you. Today, the difference is that it's easier and less expensive to get that info. There is some protection in that we're all finding out (as you are) that there is no real privacy.
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Travis
www.VOTalent.com

[Mike Harrison]

Thanks, Travis. I know how it works. And I appreciate the input, but I'm wondering whether you read my actual post or just the topic line.

I am well aware that freely participating in online forums etc. will get one's information all over the place. And that's exactly why I don't put any sensitive data out there. My online profiles have only the bare, necessary information; not even my address or phone number, if I can get away without providing it.

My alarming discovery was that the name of someone who contacted me just this past week (with no prior contact at all) at the email address that is part of my website hosting account, and is not sync-able with LinkedIn, mysteriously appeared in my LinkedIn "People You May Know" alert. The only place this person's name appears in any files on my computer is in the email he sent me, and I would have no reason to put his name in any of my online profiles.

I am NOT suffering from any delusion. THIS kind of situation is not simply an accidental breach; it could only have been the result of an intentional hacking.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Lee Gordon]

Travis actually did show up in my People You May Know list on LinkedIn this week. The fact that I recently established a LinkedIn connection with his wife may have something to do with that.

I may have even sent him a connection request (and for all I recall, he may have accepted it). If not, I probably will the next time I look at the list. Then I can proceed to endorse him for all sorts of things, whether I know he's capable of them or not,
_________________
Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

[Travis]

Hi Mike

My apologies, I did not mean to imply that you were delusional. I used the expression more "in fun". What I should have said is that "Most people don't seem to realize what's happened to their privacy in the last couple of years."

Since I've been on the internet for a very long time, I've sort-of become a bunch of people's "internet guru". One of the subjects that has come up an awful lot lately is just this issue. People are just now discovering how much of their information is being "mined" and used online by the companies that finance, and essentially "run" the internet.

While it is possible that Godaddy has sold your contact information to LinkedIn, or that someone has "hacked" your info, it's also even more likely that your contact information was provided to LinkedIn by your friend, or someone else you don't even know, unwittingly.

For instance, my smartphone is always asking for permission to use my data when I install a new a.- sometimes, that's my contact list. If your friend emailed you via Gmail.. - Yep, if your friend is using Gmail, they have given permission to "mine" the content of the emails for data. I'm pretty sure that also applies to Yahoo mail, too. Also, LinkedIn sometimes asks me for permission to access my contact list - I always say "no". but your friend may not have. Even more unsettling, it's possible that someone you don't know has your friend in their contact list, and someone else they know has yours - if that happens more than once - BANG! connection established.

Recently, Microsoft had to pull ads disparaging Google for using information in Gmail because it turned out that Microsoft was doing the same thing.

I'm quite surprised that very people seem to realize all of this, and that those that do don't seem to care. If fact I'm really surprised to discover that I don't seem to care. It's just part of living in the 21st Century, I guess.
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Travis
www.VOTalent.com

[Travis]

Hi Lee,

Yep - Accepted your invitation Thursday. I still haven't figured out what an "endorsement" is for.
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Travis
www.VOTalent.com

[heyguido]

As a further illustration of Travis' point....

Standing in line with one of my fellow geeks at a food truck rodeo.... He hands the girl his credit card, which she swipes thru the Square Reader on her phone, and returns to him. As he's waiting for his food to arrive, it occurs to him to ask for a receipt. She replies casually, "it's already been sent to your phone". He looks, and sure enough, it's there.

As we walk away, he looks at me and says, "funny thing is.... I never gave her my number...."


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Don Brookshire
"Wait.... They wanna PAY me for this?"

[melissa eX]

And that's it. Everything is linked (no pun intended) When you call your credit card company from the phone you gave them as contact info they say "I see you're calling from the phone you've registered" and so they know it is you. I imagine that verification is part of the so-called security. If you get a receipt on your phone for something you didn't purchase, well then you know something is wrong and can call and take steps. At least that's likely the "spin" on collecting information that will be touted.

On LinkedIn, Mike - it's likely the person who contacted you has a LI account where the email through which he contacted you is registered. Maybe he looked at your profile. There's the link. He's on LI, you're on LI, he looked at your profile. Who knows how it actually works? Fact is, a lot more can be done - and deduced - than we ever imagined.

[Bruce]

I'm not totally sure this is LinkedIn spying (so to speak), but their putting 2 and 2 together. Every one of the people it says I may know is linked to someone else I already "know". It's just them suggesting people we know in common.

Just a bit "spooky" is this: I sometimes go to Audible to see how my books are doing, reviews and such. Right after I did it a couple of months ago, every time I went to Facebook there was an ad for Audible to the right of my timeline, and every time it touted one of MY books.

They know what we're doing.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[melissa eX]

http://proxy.org/

[Mike Harrison]

I really do appreciate all the possibilities suggested, but:

The person who emailed me (and who subsequently showed up as someone I might know) is not a friend. He works for a company that makes bread products. I'd been buying one of their brands until the store just recently stopped selling it.

Via the company's website, I sent a message asking what other stores carry the brand. This person contacted me using the email address tied to my website. His email account is tied to his company's website. Neither of these accounts should have any direct ties (aka sync-ability) to LinkedIn.

I asked: This person did not search for me on LinkedIn. He had no reason to. Nor did I search his name or company on LinkedIn. There is no known connection here.

I do realize that many people are fine with the notion that some (perhaps most) of their online activity is tracked, etc. by the various sites they visit and/or are subscribers to. But I feel very strongly that what corporations are willing to admit to is NOT all of what they're really doing without our knowledge.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Travis]

You're right, of course. And though it's true that many companies are tracking our activities without our knowledge, they ARE doing it with our permission. - Just read the "privacy" information section of the user agreement you checked with the last application you installed on your computer or smartphone.

So far, most of this tracking seems to be benign, or even useful to us, which is why we don't seem to care. We look up a particular type of product on the internet, we get dozens of ads for similar items, some of which we might actually want. = And we get much of the content we want on the internet for free, as a result. We want to catch terrorists or criminals?? - We end up being tracked as well. - Not a problem, unless they're looking for US.

Sooner or later, though, this WILL turn into a problem. Until that happens, is discovered (The NSA didn't seem to be enough - and, naturally, we DO want them to catch those terrorists.) and enough outrage is results, we'll continue to turn a blind eye.
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Travis
www.VOTalent.com

[todd ellis]

facetube is definitely listening
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"i know philip banks": todd ellis
who's/on/1st?