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I don't get why LinkedIn gets a free pass on a lot of the shady stuff it does. Case in point: if I have a free account, public details are hidden when browsing

by minouye 13y ago

I don't get why LinkedIn gets a free pass on a lot of the shady stuff it does. Case in point: if I have a free account, public details are hidden when browsing profiles and I'm told I need to "upgrade" my account to view them. Viewing the same profile in an incognito window reveals the "restricted" details. That seems like an ExpertsExchange level trick.

hga 13y ago
I'd assume that's for recruiters, and that what you see in the incognito window is to give them a taste (perhaps they have governors to limit how much can be found per unit of time). Not being that sort of recruiter I've only ever wanted to see that kind of thing to confirm if a particular "John Doe" is the one I'm thinking of before asking to connect to him, and personalizing the note takes care of that well enough. Otherwise I can see the profiles of people in my network just fine.
- minouye 13y ago
  I'm definitely not a recruiter and LinkedIn could easily extrapolate that from my resume. Say for example I just want to do some due diligence on a contractor (or business associate or company exec. or whatever). I don't want to connect, just see their qualifications, general background, etc. Logged in: http://media.tumblr.com/ba1105d066fd8c3acca2909898d5b603/tumblr_inline_mornk0uQvp1qz4rgp.png http://media.tumblr.com/ba1105d066fd8c3acca2909898d5b603/tum... Logged out: http://media.tumblr.com/17fe723913901fe9a1e0c0c53b6ba6e4/tumblr_inline_mornmejci71qz4rgp.png http://media.tumblr.com/17fe723913901fe9a1e0c0c53b6ba6e4/tum...
  - hga 13y ago
    Ah, I didn't mean to suggest you were a "recruiter", although the examples you gave could be part of the recruiting function, and it wouldn't be unreasonable for LinkedIn to want some money from your to do perform such due diligence. It would be interesting to see if they've got an account level for that sort of small scale thing.
ngoel36 13y ago
It's like the WSJ paywall. They know you can get around it, and at the end of the day they don't want to hide the information from someone who's willing to work hard to get it. Eventually, if it's worth enough, they'll pay for ease of access.
gergles 13y ago
This is just because people have more permissive public profiles than default. I view this as a privacy feature for people who may want to be on LinkedIn but only use the site to communicate with their connections - if they have a limited/empty public profile, then you won't see any additional information. Yeah, I agree they should probably check and see if the public profiles are more permissive than just the top bit of information, but I imagine something about their architecture makes that difficult. I also agree with the point about the NYT paywall; it's likely just a tiny additional monetization strategy.
bad-news 13y ago
Oh, you mean ExpertSexChange.

by minouye 13y ago

hga 13y ago

I'd assume that's for recruiters, and that what you see in the incognito window is to give them a taste (perhaps they have governors to limit how much can be found per unit of time). Not being that sort of recruiter I've only ever wanted to see that kind of thing to confirm if a particular "John Doe" is the one I'm thinking of before asking to connect to him, and personalizing the note takes care of that well enough. Otherwise I can see the profiles of people in my network just fine.

minouye 13y ago
I'm definitely not a recruiter and LinkedIn could easily extrapolate that from my resume. Say for example I just want to do some due diligence on a contractor (or business associate or company exec. or whatever). I don't want to connect, just see their qualifications, general background, etc. Logged in: http://media.tumblr.com/ba1105d066fd8c3acca2909898d5b603/tumblr_inline_mornk0uQvp1qz4rgp.png http://media.tumblr.com/ba1105d066fd8c3acca2909898d5b603/tum... Logged out: http://media.tumblr.com/17fe723913901fe9a1e0c0c53b6ba6e4/tumblr_inline_mornmejci71qz4rgp.png http://media.tumblr.com/17fe723913901fe9a1e0c0c53b6ba6e4/tum...
- hga 13y ago
  Ah, I didn't mean to suggest you were a "recruiter", although the examples you gave could be part of the recruiting function, and it wouldn't be unreasonable for LinkedIn to want some money from your to do perform such due diligence. It would be interesting to see if they've got an account level for that sort of small scale thing.

ngoel36 13y ago

It's like the WSJ paywall. They know you can get around it, and at the end of the day they don't want to hide the information from someone who's willing to work hard to get it. Eventually, if it's worth enough, they'll pay for ease of access.

gergles 13y ago

This is just because people have more permissive public profiles than default. I view this as a privacy feature for people who may want to be on LinkedIn but only use the site to communicate with their connections - if they have a limited/empty public profile, then you won't see any additional information. Yeah, I agree they should probably check and see if the public profiles are more permissive than just the top bit of information, but I imagine something about their architecture makes that difficult. I also agree with the point about the NYT paywall; it's likely just a tiny additional monetization strategy.

bad-news 13y ago

Oh, you mean ExpertSexChange.