11 ms·

Honestly I am feeling a bit of joy watching LinkedIn take a hit. Not because I think their product is terrible but because of the endless spam emails I keep rec

by bnchrch 11y ago

Honestly I am feeling a bit of joy watching LinkedIn take a hit. Not because I think their product is terrible but because of the endless spam emails I keep receiving from them, despite how many times I click unsubscribe.

tushar-r 11y ago
This worked of me: http://lifehacker.com/unsubscribe-from-all-linkedin-emails-with-a-click-1560792523 http://lifehacker.com/unsubscribe-from-all-linkedin-emails-w... Not sure if this is still valid.
- cscharenberg 11y ago
  If is. There are very granular controls to control which emails you get and then, separately, how often, including "No emails". Looks like I did all that a year or so ago, since I only get a message now and then for new connect request. Now those are random strangers maybe 30% of the time, but I do want the notifications.
protomyth 11y ago
I've noticed quite a lot of LinkedIn e-mail is actually spam and phishing attempts. We are blocking about 5 mails per day per employee that aren't real.
SwellJoe 11y ago
So much this. I revel in every bad result for LinkedIn, because they've built a wasteland of growth hacking dark patterns and practically demand I participate in it.
gist 11y ago
I have literally several hundred request from random people to become a contact. Linkedin (years ago) lost what it had which originally attracted me to the service. That was some kind of real and exclusive way to have contacts that you either knew or you felt would be beneficial in some way. The biggest joke is the entire concept they have of using a connection to connect you to someone else who they know. Which of course depends on the definition of "know" which with linkedin means literally nothing.
- mey 11y ago
  They have also made it over time exceptionally hard to deny a connection request. It used to be in the e-mail notification, then it wasn't and on the profile page, now it seems to only be in the event/notification drop down from your home page.
  - dave2000 11y ago
    Eh? Just ignore them. No need to actively deny anything. My attitude; it's just LinkedIn. Accept everyone, you never know when someone will be useful in finding you a job, which is all I use LinkedIn for. Turn off all email notifications and just add to spam any you do get. I get emails from recruiters all the time and they're in my spam folder too. I'll take them out/search spam when I next need a new job.
- Angostura 11y ago
  They used to give guidance about what 'know' meant and I still adhere to the 'I will only link with you if I have properly worked with you' line. The fact that few other people do have devalued its use.
  - jey 11y ago
    At some point, LinkedIn changed its mind and decided that you should connect to anyone you're barely acquainted with and/or have exchanged an email with. They're actively encouraging forming these "devalued" links. They even use shady practices like borderline forgery of invitations.
    - Angostura 11y ago
      Yes. And I think was a terrible decision.
    - beastman82 11y ago
      But.. how do they know who you've emailed? I don't get how LinkedIn knows this from Gmail
uptown 11y ago
Or how about the phony "people you may know". They suggested I may know my 4 year old Niece because somebody uploaded the email address created for her into their system. She definitely doesn't have a LinkedIn account, but they portray a profile-photoless "shadow profile" as-if she does.
- snarfy 11y ago
  > because somebody uploaded the email address You mean they scrapped it from your email account because you clicked on one of their links in your email.
- pen2l 11y ago
  That happens to me too. But you know who is a thousand times worse than Linkedin when it comes to these things? Facebook. At this point, I honest /just/ /don't/ /know/ how to stop getting emails from them. In my entire life I've only had a facebook account for a few hours (created one out of necessity a few years ago -- closed it after just a few hours of use at that time). And I still get emails. I've clicked unsubscribed probably fifty times by now, but I still keep getting emails. I just don't know how to stop it. Incidentally this is one of the reasons I cheer for blackhats taking shots at Facebook, I'd love to see the behemoth shot down. They don't respect me or my time, I don't respect them.
  - otoburb 11y ago
    How do they keep getting around your spam filters? Blocking the domain has worked well for me.
  - resu_nimda 11y ago
    It would probably be pretty trivial to set up a filter or two to automatically delete those emails. Or maybe just leave your account open (though it sounds like you would refuse to do this on principle). I never receive emails from Facebook. I think it's a bit extreme to cheer for hackers to take down a big company just because they send you a few emails. How much time has it really cost you, in total, to delete their emails? 5 minutes? And for that the "behemoth" should be "shot down?"
shogun21 11y ago
My Mom asked me if I was recently on LinkedIn. Apparently they emailed her after I made some new connections. I turned off all email notifications and despise the fact that they email my contacts about my activity.
- vitd 11y ago
  Just curious - why did you give them your contacts? I've been on it for years and have never uploaded a single contact. I've just manually connected with people I know. Whenever a service asks for my contacts, I know it's because they want to spam them.
  - pkaye 11y ago
    They have some tricks on how things are placed on your personal page so you accidentally import your contacts. I've almost done so a few times.
    - coldpie 11y ago
      Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Don't you have to give them your gmail password or some other Google auth? That doesn't seem easy to do accidentally.
      - pkaye 11y ago
        Yes they need your password but they mix things in the UI making things close to each other, things pop in and out. Its basically a big trap trying to fish as much as they can from you. I don't even install their phone app knowing they will get access to my contacts.
  - jasode 11y ago
    Many people are literally tricked into uploading their contacts. Example with screenshots.[1] The UI/UX practice is called "dark patterns". On a monthly basis, I get LinkedIn "invites" from friends who simply didn't understand LinkedIn's hostile and deceptive user interface. They think they're just importing their contacts to conveniently++ find existing profiles but in reality, they're unwittingly giving permission to LinkenIn to spam their address book to recruit new members. You may be good at defensive web surfing to keep your contacts private but most others are not. Btw, there was a previous discussion from Feb 2014 about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7276032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7276032 [1]https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae726fe1462#.8nv6mhadv https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae... ++ (understandably because they don't want to manually retype each contact name into Linkedin. Ain't nobody got time for that.)
wstrange 11y ago
Email from my 88 year old Father: "I am on linkined now. What do I do?"
- twothamendment 11y ago
  I always dread computer related questions from family, but this one is easy - just send the link to close the account.
- gist 11y ago
  I think this is actually dangerous for any older and/or not web saavy person. It's a point of entry for identity theft the reason I don't even want my mother to do online banking actually. I can't police her desktop to my liking and I am afraid that somehow someway her having online access could result in countless problems.
ljk 11y ago
also the "your Lynda trial is about to end! sign up now!" emails they keep sending
aagha 11y ago
Some parts of their product ARE terrible, like their search. It almost never works. I sometimes have to go to Google to find someone on LinkedIn.
- samstave 11y ago
  I find doing anything on linkedin via mobile to be the worst experience. I am pretty surprised that in SV, they have one of the worst performing mobile experiences. It is always super slow, lags, unclicks, takes me back to an entirely previous page when hitting back, as opposed to the screen I was looking at before I read that profile... etc...
rileyt 11y ago
I also couldn't be happier watching linkedin fall. I recently deleted my account because of all the spam and creepy things linkedin does and they still send me emails!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nathanielc 11y ago
I created my account so they would stop sending me so many invite emails. At least with an account I have some control over what they send me :(
pauloday 11y ago
At our company we kept getting emails from them on email addresses that are only used to send data to our service. This was starting to become a problem, so we called them up and asked them to block that domain. They said no. Eventually they said they'd blacklist the email addresses individually. Our response was "OK so we're going to send about 20,000 email addresses for you to blacklist, and probably about 1,000 more every 2 months or so". They blacklisted our domain.
wslh 11y ago
I am completely happy with this. LinkedIn is showing off as a site to facilitate businesses while indeed is a service for recruiters. Some examples, posting original stuff to groups with thousands of members and not receiving a single comment or click to some link. Very basic bugs in their mobile offering that makes you think nobody cares about developing a good one or it was developed by a freelancer on vacation. The worst is not innovating (yes, like Tinder!) to match businesses: if after years all they have to offer is sending an In-Mail or contact someone through a middleman we are lost. And... I can't forget the fake invitations I receive every week with fake photos that I detect searching on Google images by an image.
- susan_hall 11y ago
  For me, this is the most surprising missed opportunity: "posting original stuff to groups with thousands of members and not receiving a single comment or click to some link" LinkedIn had the chance to build some amazing forums. LinkedIn should be the place that you think about when you want to have a conversation about business. They clearly have the traffic. They could have done something amazing with their groups and discussions. They have wasted all of their chances.
  - selllikesybok 11y ago
    Every time they touch Groups, they make them that much worse. They made a big (incomplete) UI overhaul which managed to make them less easy to use, and half the time fails to load posts (every 1-2 posts as you scroll down is loaded via script, fails a surprising amount of the time, or simply refuses to fire!). I'm at a total loss as to why they hate Groups so much. Not enough page loads / ad impressions? We run a few groups - ranging from 10L to 90K in size, some of which are quite active. But discussions tend to engage ~.001% of users.
    - draugadrotten 11y ago
      From my perspective, discussion groups at linkedIn fails to deliver because 99% of posts in the groups are shameless self-promotion. Posters and group creators are not seeking knowledge or discussion, but wish to promote their own new product, company. The same goes for nearly all posts on linkedin: the site is treated as an advertising channel by all involved.
NelsonMinar 11y ago
LinkedIn is the only mainstream service I've completely shitcanned in a Gmail filter.
kozukumi 11y ago
Agreed. In the end I deleted my account and haven't looked back. It gave me no value and just pissed me off.
jasonmp85 11y ago
Am I the only one not getting LinkedIn email? I have an account, turned off all email-based notifications, and stop by every half-year or so to see what's in my inbox. It's usually full of messages, but I never get any emails from them. Am I just lucky? What's up?
- cscharenberg 11y ago
  Same here. I get an email when someone asks to connect but nothing else, and I get that because I want it. They have pretty explicit settings. Just checked and "Introductions and InMail" are only thing enabled. You can also adjust frequency for individual types of messages so you get batch updates. LinkedIn is generally crappy at what is supposed to be its primary purposes, and they do shady UX stuff. But they have very granular controls for email and push notifications.
  - reitzensteinm 11y ago
    I get zero spam to the email I have a LinkedIn account on. I get a shit ton to my gmail, no matter how often I click unsubscribe, send to spam and whatever else. So both your experience and the grandparent's are possible - they respect you, once you've signed up.
    - cscharenberg 11y ago
      Interesting. That could explain the disparity of experiences being discussed here. I have all my emails in LinkedIn to be discoverable by colleagues, so that means LinkedIn also knows they are specifically me and I'm signed up.
- manigandham 11y ago
  You're not lucky. People are just lazy and like to complain rather than spend the 2 minutes to update their email settings.
AngrySkillzz 11y ago
The emails are bad, but I also think their product is terrible.
- cscharenberg 11y ago
  This is true. The newsfeed has turned into meme and inspirational quote sharing. I am unfollowing individual people now (just like FB, yay!) It really is a poor product for what it looked like it might become.
VeilEm 11y ago
I ended up deleting my LinkedIn account with hundreds of connections and recreating it with an email I use for spam. I haven't worried about linkedin emails since. Another recommendation I have: when you go on the job hunt, create an email just for that job hunt. Once you get the job, throw that email away. Next time you get a job, make a new email address. Your recruiter spam will stop.
- tajen 11y ago
  My parents are always very sad and disappointed when I turn down a recruiter phone call. "This is a headhunter for you, son!" Jobs have somehow become a commodity, so massively available that spammy behaviours appeared.
tallerholler 11y ago
this... I've refused to ever sign up for LinkedIn despite many peers asking me why not and acting like I should be on there.. I've thought their spam tactics were dispicable and harassing. I've unsubscribed but still get emails trying to get me to sign up. No one "has" to use LinkedIn or any other software for that matter...
baddox 11y ago
One of my biggest technological accomplishments and one of my biggest improvements in quality of life is when I finally managed (after 2 years of regular attempts) to delete my LinkedIn account and halt all emails.
cyansmoker 11y ago
You should not. If anything, this will cause them to send even more emails!
csomar 11y ago
I'm afraid this will result in even more spammy emails.
fiatjaf 11y ago
Die, Linkedin, die!
manigandham 11y ago
Their product IS terrible. Remember they actually charge users for this unlike other networks that monetize purely from advertising. LinkedIn can and should be far better but it's incredibly how bad it really is.

by bnchrch 11y ago

tushar-r 11y ago

This worked of me: http://lifehacker.com/unsubscribe-from-all-linkedin-emails-with-a-click-1560792523 http://lifehacker.com/unsubscribe-from-all-linkedin-emails-w... Not sure if this is still valid.

cscharenberg 11y ago
If is. There are very granular controls to control which emails you get and then, separately, how often, including "No emails". Looks like I did all that a year or so ago, since I only get a message now and then for new connect request. Now those are random strangers maybe 30% of the time, but I do want the notifications.

protomyth 11y ago

I've noticed quite a lot of LinkedIn e-mail is actually spam and phishing attempts. We are blocking about 5 mails per day per employee that aren't real.

SwellJoe 11y ago

So much this. I revel in every bad result for LinkedIn, because they've built a wasteland of growth hacking dark patterns and practically demand I participate in it.

gist 11y ago

I have literally several hundred request from random people to become a contact. Linkedin (years ago) lost what it had which originally attracted me to the service. That was some kind of real and exclusive way to have contacts that you either knew or you felt would be beneficial in some way. The biggest joke is the entire concept they have of using a connection to connect you to someone else who they know. Which of course depends on the definition of "know" which with linkedin means literally nothing.

mey 11y ago
They have also made it over time exceptionally hard to deny a connection request. It used to be in the e-mail notification, then it wasn't and on the profile page, now it seems to only be in the event/notification drop down from your home page.
- dave2000 11y ago
  Eh? Just ignore them. No need to actively deny anything. My attitude; it's just LinkedIn. Accept everyone, you never know when someone will be useful in finding you a job, which is all I use LinkedIn for. Turn off all email notifications and just add to spam any you do get. I get emails from recruiters all the time and they're in my spam folder too. I'll take them out/search spam when I next need a new job.
Angostura 11y ago
They used to give guidance about what 'know' meant and I still adhere to the 'I will only link with you if I have properly worked with you' line. The fact that few other people do have devalued its use.
- jey 11y ago
  At some point, LinkedIn changed its mind and decided that you should connect to anyone you're barely acquainted with and/or have exchanged an email with. They're actively encouraging forming these "devalued" links. They even use shady practices like borderline forgery of invitations.
  - Angostura 11y ago
    Yes. And I think was a terrible decision.
  - beastman82 11y ago
    But.. how do they know who you've emailed? I don't get how LinkedIn knows this from Gmail

uptown 11y ago

Or how about the phony "people you may know". They suggested I may know my 4 year old Niece because somebody uploaded the email address created for her into their system. She definitely doesn't have a LinkedIn account, but they portray a profile-photoless "shadow profile" as-if she does.

snarfy 11y ago
> because somebody uploaded the email address You mean they scrapped it from your email account because you clicked on one of their links in your email.
pen2l 11y ago
That happens to me too. But you know who is a thousand times worse than Linkedin when it comes to these things? Facebook. At this point, I honest /just/ /don't/ /know/ how to stop getting emails from them. In my entire life I've only had a facebook account for a few hours (created one out of necessity a few years ago -- closed it after just a few hours of use at that time). And I still get emails. I've clicked unsubscribed probably fifty times by now, but I still keep getting emails. I just don't know how to stop it. Incidentally this is one of the reasons I cheer for blackhats taking shots at Facebook, I'd love to see the behemoth shot down. They don't respect me or my time, I don't respect them.
- otoburb 11y ago
  How do they keep getting around your spam filters? Blocking the domain has worked well for me.
- resu_nimda 11y ago
  It would probably be pretty trivial to set up a filter or two to automatically delete those emails. Or maybe just leave your account open (though it sounds like you would refuse to do this on principle). I never receive emails from Facebook. I think it's a bit extreme to cheer for hackers to take down a big company just because they send you a few emails. How much time has it really cost you, in total, to delete their emails? 5 minutes? And for that the "behemoth" should be "shot down?"

shogun21 11y ago

My Mom asked me if I was recently on LinkedIn. Apparently they emailed her after I made some new connections. I turned off all email notifications and despise the fact that they email my contacts about my activity.

vitd 11y ago
Just curious - why did you give them your contacts? I've been on it for years and have never uploaded a single contact. I've just manually connected with people I know. Whenever a service asks for my contacts, I know it's because they want to spam them.
- pkaye 11y ago
  They have some tricks on how things are placed on your personal page so you accidentally import your contacts. I've almost done so a few times.
  - coldpie 11y ago
    Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Don't you have to give them your gmail password or some other Google auth? That doesn't seem easy to do accidentally.
    - pkaye 11y ago
      Yes they need your password but they mix things in the UI making things close to each other, things pop in and out. Its basically a big trap trying to fish as much as they can from you. I don't even install their phone app knowing they will get access to my contacts.
- jasode 11y ago
  Many people are literally tricked into uploading their contacts. Example with screenshots.[1] The UI/UX practice is called "dark patterns". On a monthly basis, I get LinkedIn "invites" from friends who simply didn't understand LinkedIn's hostile and deceptive user interface. They think they're just importing their contacts to conveniently++ find existing profiles but in reality, they're unwittingly giving permission to LinkenIn to spam their address book to recruit new members. You may be good at defensive web surfing to keep your contacts private but most others are not. Btw, there was a previous discussion from Feb 2014 about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7276032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7276032 [1]https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae726fe1462#.8nv6mhadv https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae... ++ (understandably because they don't want to manually retype each contact name into Linkedin. Ain't nobody got time for that.)

wstrange 11y ago

Email from my 88 year old Father: "I am on linkined now. What do I do?"

twothamendment 11y ago
I always dread computer related questions from family, but this one is easy - just send the link to close the account.
gist 11y ago
I think this is actually dangerous for any older and/or not web saavy person. It's a point of entry for identity theft the reason I don't even want my mother to do online banking actually. I can't police her desktop to my liking and I am afraid that somehow someway her having online access could result in countless problems.

ljk 11y ago

also the "your Lynda trial is about to end! sign up now!" emails they keep sending

aagha 11y ago

Some parts of their product ARE terrible, like their search. It almost never works. I sometimes have to go to Google to find someone on LinkedIn.

samstave 11y ago
I find doing anything on linkedin via mobile to be the worst experience. I am pretty surprised that in SV, they have one of the worst performing mobile experiences. It is always super slow, lags, unclicks, takes me back to an entirely previous page when hitting back, as opposed to the screen I was looking at before I read that profile... etc...

rileyt 11y ago

I also couldn't be happier watching linkedin fall. I recently deleted my account because of all the spam and creepy things linkedin does and they still send me emails!

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

nathanielc 11y ago

I created my account so they would stop sending me so many invite emails. At least with an account I have some control over what they send me :(

pauloday 11y ago

At our company we kept getting emails from them on email addresses that are only used to send data to our service. This was starting to become a problem, so we called them up and asked them to block that domain. They said no. Eventually they said they'd blacklist the email addresses individually. Our response was "OK so we're going to send about 20,000 email addresses for you to blacklist, and probably about 1,000 more every 2 months or so". They blacklisted our domain.

wslh 11y ago

I am completely happy with this. LinkedIn is showing off as a site to facilitate businesses while indeed is a service for recruiters. Some examples, posting original stuff to groups with thousands of members and not receiving a single comment or click to some link. Very basic bugs in their mobile offering that makes you think nobody cares about developing a good one or it was developed by a freelancer on vacation. The worst is not innovating (yes, like Tinder!) to match businesses: if after years all they have to offer is sending an In-Mail or contact someone through a middleman we are lost. And... I can't forget the fake invitations I receive every week with fake photos that I detect searching on Google images by an image.

susan_hall 11y ago
For me, this is the most surprising missed opportunity: "posting original stuff to groups with thousands of members and not receiving a single comment or click to some link" LinkedIn had the chance to build some amazing forums. LinkedIn should be the place that you think about when you want to have a conversation about business. They clearly have the traffic. They could have done something amazing with their groups and discussions. They have wasted all of their chances.
- selllikesybok 11y ago
  Every time they touch Groups, they make them that much worse. They made a big (incomplete) UI overhaul which managed to make them less easy to use, and half the time fails to load posts (every 1-2 posts as you scroll down is loaded via script, fails a surprising amount of the time, or simply refuses to fire!). I'm at a total loss as to why they hate Groups so much. Not enough page loads / ad impressions? We run a few groups - ranging from 10L to 90K in size, some of which are quite active. But discussions tend to engage ~.001% of users.
  - draugadrotten 11y ago
    From my perspective, discussion groups at linkedIn fails to deliver because 99% of posts in the groups are shameless self-promotion. Posters and group creators are not seeking knowledge or discussion, but wish to promote their own new product, company. The same goes for nearly all posts on linkedin: the site is treated as an advertising channel by all involved.

NelsonMinar 11y ago

LinkedIn is the only mainstream service I've completely shitcanned in a Gmail filter.

kozukumi 11y ago

Agreed. In the end I deleted my account and haven't looked back. It gave me no value and just pissed me off.

jasonmp85 11y ago

Am I the only one not getting LinkedIn email? I have an account, turned off all email-based notifications, and stop by every half-year or so to see what's in my inbox. It's usually full of messages, but I never get any emails from them. Am I just lucky? What's up?

cscharenberg 11y ago
Same here. I get an email when someone asks to connect but nothing else, and I get that because I want it. They have pretty explicit settings. Just checked and "Introductions and InMail" are only thing enabled. You can also adjust frequency for individual types of messages so you get batch updates. LinkedIn is generally crappy at what is supposed to be its primary purposes, and they do shady UX stuff. But they have very granular controls for email and push notifications.
- reitzensteinm 11y ago
  I get zero spam to the email I have a LinkedIn account on. I get a shit ton to my gmail, no matter how often I click unsubscribe, send to spam and whatever else. So both your experience and the grandparent's are possible - they respect you, once you've signed up.
  - cscharenberg 11y ago
    Interesting. That could explain the disparity of experiences being discussed here. I have all my emails in LinkedIn to be discoverable by colleagues, so that means LinkedIn also knows they are specifically me and I'm signed up.
manigandham 11y ago
You're not lucky. People are just lazy and like to complain rather than spend the 2 minutes to update their email settings.

AngrySkillzz 11y ago

The emails are bad, but I also think their product is terrible.

cscharenberg 11y ago
This is true. The newsfeed has turned into meme and inspirational quote sharing. I am unfollowing individual people now (just like FB, yay!) It really is a poor product for what it looked like it might become.

VeilEm 11y ago

I ended up deleting my LinkedIn account with hundreds of connections and recreating it with an email I use for spam. I haven't worried about linkedin emails since. Another recommendation I have: when you go on the job hunt, create an email just for that job hunt. Once you get the job, throw that email away. Next time you get a job, make a new email address. Your recruiter spam will stop.

tajen 11y ago
My parents are always very sad and disappointed when I turn down a recruiter phone call. "This is a headhunter for you, son!" Jobs have somehow become a commodity, so massively available that spammy behaviours appeared.

tallerholler 11y ago

this... I've refused to ever sign up for LinkedIn despite many peers asking me why not and acting like I should be on there.. I've thought their spam tactics were dispicable and harassing. I've unsubscribed but still get emails trying to get me to sign up. No one "has" to use LinkedIn or any other software for that matter...

baddox 11y ago

One of my biggest technological accomplishments and one of my biggest improvements in quality of life is when I finally managed (after 2 years of regular attempts) to delete my LinkedIn account and halt all emails.

cyansmoker 11y ago

You should not. If anything, this will cause them to send even more emails!

csomar 11y ago

I'm afraid this will result in even more spammy emails.

fiatjaf 11y ago

Die, Linkedin, die!

manigandham 11y ago

Their product IS terrible. Remember they actually charge users for this unlike other networks that monetize purely from advertising. LinkedIn can and should be far better but it's incredibly how bad it really is.