3 ms·

You're exaggerating. Microsoft and Google literally own your email, while only recruiters check their LinkedIn messages, most of them being spam.

mindcrime 10y ago
while only recruiters check their LinkedIn messages, most of them being spam That does not jibe with my experience at all. And it goes beyond the messaging thing anyway. LI hosts job postings directly, and has a lot of internal information about all sorts of companies. Now you might say "well, somebody could mine that stuff anyway", and that might be true. But the LI API has some limits and scraping is a PITA.. but now MS has the data with direct access, which makes it far, far easier for them to do something nefarious with it if the urge strikes. And as much as MS have changed, seemingly for the better, of the past few years, there's still a lot of reason to consider the reasoning behind the old saw "The two biggest tactical mistakes you can make are staging a ground invasion of Russia in the winter, and partnering with Microsoft".
- bad_user 10y ago
  > "The two biggest tactical mistakes you can make are staging a ground invasion of Russia in the winter, and partnering with Microsoft" While I hole heartily agree with that line of reasoning, in this instance they are buying LinkedIn, not partnering with them. Skype is still alive. My problem is that LinkedIn is an overvalued property. I mean OK, Microsoft and others could extract useful data from it, but it's nothing you can't infer from other places IMO. And mark my words, but Facebook will eat their lunch. Maybe that's why Microsoft bought LinkedIn, as a defensive move. Time will tell.
  - mindcrime 10y ago
    While I hole heartily agree with that line of reasoning, in this instance they are buying LinkedIn, not partnering with them. Right, the point referring to that old saw was more of a comment on Microsoft's trustworthiness in general. That is, it is a suggestion that Microsoft are not to be trusted in terms of what they might do with the LI data. I mean OK, Microsoft and others could extract useful data from it, but it's nothing you can't infer from other places IMO Yeah, that's true.
mpweiher 10y ago
My primary e-mail is hosted by a small private provider. My secondary e-mail is hosted by a different small private provider. Then come Apple, Google (mostly for groups) and Microsoft.
- jorts 10y ago
  It's probably safe to assume that a good number of the people that you email use email hosted by Google, Microsoft, etc..., which exposes many of your emails to them.

mindcrime 10y ago

while only recruiters check their LinkedIn messages, most of them being spam That does not jibe with my experience at all. And it goes beyond the messaging thing anyway. LI hosts job postings directly, and has a lot of internal information about all sorts of companies. Now you might say "well, somebody could mine that stuff anyway", and that might be true. But the LI API has some limits and scraping is a PITA.. but now MS has the data with direct access, which makes it far, far easier for them to do something nefarious with it if the urge strikes. And as much as MS have changed, seemingly for the better, of the past few years, there's still a lot of reason to consider the reasoning behind the old saw "The two biggest tactical mistakes you can make are staging a ground invasion of Russia in the winter, and partnering with Microsoft".

bad_user 10y ago
> "The two biggest tactical mistakes you can make are staging a ground invasion of Russia in the winter, and partnering with Microsoft" While I hole heartily agree with that line of reasoning, in this instance they are buying LinkedIn, not partnering with them. Skype is still alive. My problem is that LinkedIn is an overvalued property. I mean OK, Microsoft and others could extract useful data from it, but it's nothing you can't infer from other places IMO. And mark my words, but Facebook will eat their lunch. Maybe that's why Microsoft bought LinkedIn, as a defensive move. Time will tell.
- mindcrime 10y ago
  While I hole heartily agree with that line of reasoning, in this instance they are buying LinkedIn, not partnering with them. Right, the point referring to that old saw was more of a comment on Microsoft's trustworthiness in general. That is, it is a suggestion that Microsoft are not to be trusted in terms of what they might do with the LI data. I mean OK, Microsoft and others could extract useful data from it, but it's nothing you can't infer from other places IMO Yeah, that's true.

mpweiher 10y ago

My primary e-mail is hosted by a small private provider. My secondary e-mail is hosted by a different small private provider. Then come Apple, Google (mostly for groups) and Microsoft.

jorts 10y ago
It's probably safe to assume that a good number of the people that you email use email hosted by Google, Microsoft, etc..., which exposes many of your emails to them.