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Isn’t that the point of LinkedIn? To be found? If you have someone’s name... used to be you could find out where they lived and their phone number, in a book th

Isn’t that the point of LinkedIn? To be found? If you have someone’s name... used to be you could find out where they lived and their phone number, in a book that a private company sent to everyone’s house.

dontbenebby 8y ago
If you have someone's first and last name, yes, LinkedIn is intended to make them findable. I think most people would be uncomfortable that I can often find them simply with the first name + city pairing.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Correct. That's why I recommend people set the widest possible city and field pairing as possible.
- intopieces 8y ago
  Why would they be uncomfortable having their LinkedIn found by any method? Forgive me for sounding obtuse, but I just don’t know what the point of having a LinkedIn would be otherwise. It’s essentially a placeholder that says, “I exist and am employed in such and such industry and at so and so company.” It consists of information I would voluntarily give anyone who asked, sitting next to me on an airplane, standing in line for coffee... What malicious deeds should I be worried about being done based on someone finding my information on LinkedIn?
  - dontbenebby 8y ago
    >Why would they be uncomfortable having their LinkedIn found by any method? Harassment. How would you feel if you broke off a conversation on Tinder and someone moved over to LinkedIn to harass you? That's a real world example that has happened to female friends of mine. Even if you use a different phone number, email, and photo, just first name + city alone can be enough to find someone on LinkedIn if you know what they look like. Social networks cause context collapse: we live in multiple spheres, but technology allows those streams to cross, and the result is often unpleasant.
    - intopieces 8y ago
      I get that other people have risk factors that I don’t. Are these risks not mitigated by the privacy settings on LinkedIn? Full disclosure: I checked my privacy settings on LinkedIn and disabled some features I no longer value. Thanks for reminding me.

dontbenebby 8y ago

If you have someone's first and last name, yes, LinkedIn is intended to make them findable. I think most people would be uncomfortable that I can often find them simply with the first name + city pairing.

akhilcacharya 8y ago
Correct. That's why I recommend people set the widest possible city and field pairing as possible.
intopieces 8y ago
Why would they be uncomfortable having their LinkedIn found by any method? Forgive me for sounding obtuse, but I just don’t know what the point of having a LinkedIn would be otherwise. It’s essentially a placeholder that says, “I exist and am employed in such and such industry and at so and so company.” It consists of information I would voluntarily give anyone who asked, sitting next to me on an airplane, standing in line for coffee... What malicious deeds should I be worried about being done based on someone finding my information on LinkedIn?
- dontbenebby 8y ago
  >Why would they be uncomfortable having their LinkedIn found by any method? Harassment. How would you feel if you broke off a conversation on Tinder and someone moved over to LinkedIn to harass you? That's a real world example that has happened to female friends of mine. Even if you use a different phone number, email, and photo, just first name + city alone can be enough to find someone on LinkedIn if you know what they look like. Social networks cause context collapse: we live in multiple spheres, but technology allows those streams to cross, and the result is often unpleasant.
  - intopieces 8y ago
    I get that other people have risk factors that I don’t. Are these risks not mitigated by the privacy settings on LinkedIn? Full disclosure: I checked my privacy settings on LinkedIn and disabled some features I no longer value. Thanks for reminding me.