8 ms·

This is a tricky issue that has more to do with user psychology than technology. While the data is public, most users do not understand the persistence characte

This is a tricky issue that has more to do with user psychology than technology. While the data is public, most users do not understand the persistence characteristics of data, especially in the presence of 3rd parties. In a world where there are no (persistent) copies made by third-parties, the user still is in control of the visibility of their data by updating their profile directly on LinkedIn to show/hide pieces as they see fit. With a 3rd-party in the picture, updates to user-data may or may not be respected by the 3rd party, leading to poor user-experience. Quoting the article, "HiQ Labs uses the LinkedIn data to build algorithms capable of predicting employee behaviors, such as when they might quit." Based on that one statement alone, as an employee, I would be uncomfortable with the use of my data to supply my employer with my future plans before I choose to disclose it myself. That choice is mine, and mine alone; not something to be monetized simply because the option exists. And while I have no control over the sharing of data, should something like this happen to me, I'd be more inclined to stop using LinkedIn, which in-turn affects LinkedIn's ability to do business.

redial 9y ago
Then don't make your profile public. You can't expect someone to forget you once had a bad haircut just because you now got a really cool one.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- chii 9y ago
  actually, that happens a lot, at least before the advent of the internet. Physical photos are not always available, and people's memories fade. This is why a lot of people still think of information in the old way - as time goes by, it might fade.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  The problem is you're basically saying to re-train every person who uses the internet to behave in a way completely different from what they're used to. If you think you can do that, by all means try. But don't be surprised when you find out that your expectations and their expectations were different, and you're the one they blame, and they outnumber you by a lot.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - studentrob 9y ago
    > The problem is you're basically saying to re-train every person who uses the internet to behave in a way completely different from what they're used to. When did we ever teach people that you can control where your data ends up on the internet? Aren't we trending towards teaching people to not even share data on "closed" services like Facebook and Gmail precisely because they are a single source for a lot of data to be misused by the company, or hacked by a malicious actor? Regarding data that is accessible without "friending" someone or logging in as the user themselves (e.g. Gmail), I hope people already realize that this data can easily be re-used. > But don't be surprised when you find out that your expectations and their expectations were different, and you're the one they blame, and they outnumber you by a lot. If the majority of people think that they can share nude photos of themselves on their own blog or twitter and that this won't be re-used elsewhere, well... I must be living in a different reality, or I misunderstand your point.
    - azernik 9y ago
      We taught people that they could control where their data ends up before the internet, because that was an accurate model of reality. I think this is a problem that we'll grow out of as more and more people grow up in the shadow of omnipresent social media.
      - sowbug 9y ago
        Junk mail, telemarketing, revenge porn, and gossip predate the internet. Different media, same lessons.
  - bryanrasmussen 9y ago
    indeed a way completely different than anyone in the history of humanity has ever behaved.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  While that is true, you can't be dismissive that technological advances allow for more sophisticated "memories"
- p49k 9y ago
  This argument would hold more water if these services didn't constantly rely on dark patterns to trick people into making things public that they otherwise would have preferred to be private.
syshum 9y ago
One solution to both HIq labs and linked in is to give users, not these companies, some kind of ownership over their data. Instead of having information about you be owned by which ever corporation collects it, have it at all times be owned by you. While there are some clear problems with this approach, something needs to be done about companies building databases of ruin where every moment everyone lives from the day they are born until the day they die are cataloged into database for review either by society in general or by algorithms looking to make predictions that impact an individuals future. I should have some level of control over my Personal information, today even if you actively suppress the 1st party info you put out in the world the number of 3rd parties adding to your profile dwarfs any data you personally put out there, from credit reports, to government databases to credit card companies to soon your web browsing history sold by the ISP's It is ,IMO, out of control
- nine_k 9y ago
  Data you own is not public, by definition. This needs to be made abundantly clear. Something like "all rights reserved" on images.
  - EGreg 9y ago
    As usual this is the "copyright" debate. So is your public profile copyrighted by you? The actual server is controlled by you or gives you a way to take the data down. But by then it could have been republished elsewhere!
- avip 9y ago
  You do "own" the data. It just so happens that by registering to LI, you've granted A worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish, and process, information and content that you provide through our Services, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    To whom have you granted the license to? I could see a legal argument that you've granted LinkedIn such a license, along with the right for LinkedIn to sublicense and transfer it, but still retain the right to press claims against third parties that scrape LinkedIn and use the information. I don't think you've granted LinkedIn the right to sue to enforce your claims against third parties, so you'd have to sue directly.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cvsh 9y ago
>Based on that one statement alone, as an employee, I would be uncomfortable with the use of my data to supply my employer with my future plans before I choose to disclose it myself. That choice is mine, and mine alone; not something to be monetized simply because the option exists. What choice? The only choice you have is whether to post public info or not. You have no choice over what others do with it. You can't police what others do with information that you freely publicize.
- anandsuresh 9y ago
  The issue isn't that the data is public. The issue is the extraction of underlying behavior based on the spatial and temporal characteristics of the data being posted. E.g. the fact that I updated my profile on LinkedIn is not in question. But the underlying behavior is that the average user normally updates their profile around the time that they start a job-search. While this isn't true for every user, the use of an algorithm may turn up false positives, which may have unintended results, especially when this data is presented to your manager. Secondly, while the updated profile is public knowledge, the temporal characteristics of the update isn't a feature that is directly published by LinkedIn. Call it a product feature; it is tailored to present the qualifications of a user, not to advertise the fact that they may be looking for a job. While one can argue that update is public knowledge, and must therefore be available for data-mining purposes, there is a subtle, but potentially dangerous leak of information here that is open to interpretation. LinkedIn's position, that this leak may be potentially harmful to its users, and by extension, its core business, is therefore a fair point.
jaredklewis 9y ago
Though I disagree, I think basically understand your argument regarding why people should have to respect the wishes of a party when dealing with information that the party made public. What I cannot understand is how such a system could reasonably be enforced. Let's say John Doe posts his resume on a job board. If I print out his resume, but he later updates it, am I now somehow in the wrong for retaining the old copy? I am also a little puzzled by the notion that "persistence" is a new phenomenon. Of course there have been paper records and such for quite some time, but I'll put that aside for a moment. When I was younger, I was often cautioned to think carefully before acting, as a reputation decades in the making could be permanently ruined in just minutes. It seems to me that when it comes to mistakes and "bad" deeds, society's collective memory has always been rock solid. Rather the persistence, I think the new factor is that things are less regional than before. You can't just pick up and move to a new town, because they basically have the same Internet everywhere.
- anandsuresh 9y ago
  >What I cannot understand is how such a system could reasonably be enforced. That would be a 26 billion dollar question, and one I would very much love to solve one day! :) I believe that your example is fairly simplistic to capture the crux of the issue here. The metadata associated with posts often contain features that are quite revealing, but not necessarily the kind of data that the source would wish to be revealed. E.g. I have noticed multiple times that the number of cold emails I have received from recruiters is higher immediately after I update my LinkedIn profile, leading me to believe that the last-update timestamp is a feature that the LinkedIn search engine may be relying on to rank results. While my evidence is purely empirical, it isn't a stretch to imagine that it would be a reasonable thing to do, given that most users normally update their profiles when they are about to start searching for new opportunities. On the one hand, this is a an excellent product that allows recruiters to reach targets that exhibit behavior associated with active job-seekers, resulting in better connections. It results in a win-win situation where the recruiter gets a pretty good return on his/her investment, and the target receives the attention/information they were looking for with their update. False positives in this situation result in a few unsolicited emails/unwanted attention. On the flip side, this information can be repackaged to present a manager with a graph plotting the probability of an employee quitting. While this is a perfectly good product, no employee would every use a service that might reveal their future plans ahead of a time of their own choosing. Furthermore, false positives here can have a significant impact and LinkedIn may not remain in business for long if word of this product gets out.

redial 9y ago

Then don't make your profile public. You can't expect someone to forget you once had a bad haircut just because you now got a really cool one.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
chii 9y ago
actually, that happens a lot, at least before the advent of the internet. Physical photos are not always available, and people's memories fade. This is why a lot of people still think of information in the old way - as time goes by, it might fade.
ubernostrum 9y ago
The problem is you're basically saying to re-train every person who uses the internet to behave in a way completely different from what they're used to. If you think you can do that, by all means try. But don't be surprised when you find out that your expectations and their expectations were different, and you're the one they blame, and they outnumber you by a lot.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- studentrob 9y ago
  > The problem is you're basically saying to re-train every person who uses the internet to behave in a way completely different from what they're used to. When did we ever teach people that you can control where your data ends up on the internet? Aren't we trending towards teaching people to not even share data on "closed" services like Facebook and Gmail precisely because they are a single source for a lot of data to be misused by the company, or hacked by a malicious actor? Regarding data that is accessible without "friending" someone or logging in as the user themselves (e.g. Gmail), I hope people already realize that this data can easily be re-used. > But don't be surprised when you find out that your expectations and their expectations were different, and you're the one they blame, and they outnumber you by a lot. If the majority of people think that they can share nude photos of themselves on their own blog or twitter and that this won't be re-used elsewhere, well... I must be living in a different reality, or I misunderstand your point.
  - azernik 9y ago
    We taught people that they could control where their data ends up before the internet, because that was an accurate model of reality. I think this is a problem that we'll grow out of as more and more people grow up in the shadow of omnipresent social media.
    - sowbug 9y ago
      Junk mail, telemarketing, revenge porn, and gossip predate the internet. Different media, same lessons.
- bryanrasmussen 9y ago
  indeed a way completely different than anyone in the history of humanity has ever behaved.
paulie_a 9y ago
While that is true, you can't be dismissive that technological advances allow for more sophisticated "memories"
p49k 9y ago
This argument would hold more water if these services didn't constantly rely on dark patterns to trick people into making things public that they otherwise would have preferred to be private.

syshum 9y ago

One solution to both HIq labs and linked in is to give users, not these companies, some kind of ownership over their data. Instead of having information about you be owned by which ever corporation collects it, have it at all times be owned by you. While there are some clear problems with this approach, something needs to be done about companies building databases of ruin where every moment everyone lives from the day they are born until the day they die are cataloged into database for review either by society in general or by algorithms looking to make predictions that impact an individuals future. I should have some level of control over my Personal information, today even if you actively suppress the 1st party info you put out in the world the number of 3rd parties adding to your profile dwarfs any data you personally put out there, from credit reports, to government databases to credit card companies to soon your web browsing history sold by the ISP's It is ,IMO, out of control

nine_k 9y ago
Data you own is not public, by definition. This needs to be made abundantly clear. Something like "all rights reserved" on images.
- EGreg 9y ago
  As usual this is the "copyright" debate. So is your public profile copyrighted by you? The actual server is controlled by you or gives you a way to take the data down. But by then it could have been republished elsewhere!
avip 9y ago
You do "own" the data. It just so happens that by registering to LI, you've granted A worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish, and process, information and content that you provide through our Services, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  To whom have you granted the license to? I could see a legal argument that you've granted LinkedIn such a license, along with the right for LinkedIn to sublicense and transfer it, but still retain the right to press claims against third parties that scrape LinkedIn and use the information. I don't think you've granted LinkedIn the right to sue to enforce your claims against third parties, so you'd have to sue directly.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

cvsh 9y ago

>Based on that one statement alone, as an employee, I would be uncomfortable with the use of my data to supply my employer with my future plans before I choose to disclose it myself. That choice is mine, and mine alone; not something to be monetized simply because the option exists. What choice? The only choice you have is whether to post public info or not. You have no choice over what others do with it. You can't police what others do with information that you freely publicize.

anandsuresh 9y ago
The issue isn't that the data is public. The issue is the extraction of underlying behavior based on the spatial and temporal characteristics of the data being posted. E.g. the fact that I updated my profile on LinkedIn is not in question. But the underlying behavior is that the average user normally updates their profile around the time that they start a job-search. While this isn't true for every user, the use of an algorithm may turn up false positives, which may have unintended results, especially when this data is presented to your manager. Secondly, while the updated profile is public knowledge, the temporal characteristics of the update isn't a feature that is directly published by LinkedIn. Call it a product feature; it is tailored to present the qualifications of a user, not to advertise the fact that they may be looking for a job. While one can argue that update is public knowledge, and must therefore be available for data-mining purposes, there is a subtle, but potentially dangerous leak of information here that is open to interpretation. LinkedIn's position, that this leak may be potentially harmful to its users, and by extension, its core business, is therefore a fair point.

jaredklewis 9y ago

Though I disagree, I think basically understand your argument regarding why people should have to respect the wishes of a party when dealing with information that the party made public. What I cannot understand is how such a system could reasonably be enforced. Let's say John Doe posts his resume on a job board. If I print out his resume, but he later updates it, am I now somehow in the wrong for retaining the old copy? I am also a little puzzled by the notion that "persistence" is a new phenomenon. Of course there have been paper records and such for quite some time, but I'll put that aside for a moment. When I was younger, I was often cautioned to think carefully before acting, as a reputation decades in the making could be permanently ruined in just minutes. It seems to me that when it comes to mistakes and "bad" deeds, society's collective memory has always been rock solid. Rather the persistence, I think the new factor is that things are less regional than before. You can't just pick up and move to a new town, because they basically have the same Internet everywhere.

anandsuresh 9y ago
>What I cannot understand is how such a system could reasonably be enforced. That would be a 26 billion dollar question, and one I would very much love to solve one day! :) I believe that your example is fairly simplistic to capture the crux of the issue here. The metadata associated with posts often contain features that are quite revealing, but not necessarily the kind of data that the source would wish to be revealed. E.g. I have noticed multiple times that the number of cold emails I have received from recruiters is higher immediately after I update my LinkedIn profile, leading me to believe that the last-update timestamp is a feature that the LinkedIn search engine may be relying on to rank results. While my evidence is purely empirical, it isn't a stretch to imagine that it would be a reasonable thing to do, given that most users normally update their profiles when they are about to start searching for new opportunities. On the one hand, this is a an excellent product that allows recruiters to reach targets that exhibit behavior associated with active job-seekers, resulting in better connections. It results in a win-win situation where the recruiter gets a pretty good return on his/her investment, and the target receives the attention/information they were looking for with their update. False positives in this situation result in a few unsolicited emails/unwanted attention. On the flip side, this information can be repackaged to present a manager with a graph plotting the probability of an employee quitting. While this is a perfectly good product, no employee would every use a service that might reveal their future plans ahead of a time of their own choosing. Furthermore, false positives here can have a significant impact and LinkedIn may not remain in business for long if word of this product gets out.