13 ms·

Today I Deleted My LinkedIn Account; You Probably Should Too

157 points by mbildner 13y ago

sp332 13y ago
According to http://justdelete.me/ http://justdelete.me/ LinkedIn has been reported to send you emails even after you delete your account. I know one woman who kept getting invitation emails from another guy, even though he wasn't active on the site at all. She was so annoyed that (with her permission) I added her email address to my account so it would stop bugging her.
- Zikes 13y ago
  Wouldn't that run afoul of the CAN-SPAM act?
  - sp332 13y ago
    Since the emails were supposedly sent at the behest of a user, I don't think it counts as unsolicited email.
    - Zikes 13y ago
      CAN-SPAM requires an option to unsubscribe, though.
      - sp332 13y ago
        It's not like Gmail adds a link to unsubscribe from all Gmail users' emails. If a user sends a message, LinkedIn can deliver it without falling afoul of CAN-SPAM.
        Zikes 13y ago
        LinkedIn is sending the emails. Even if someone intentionally put my email address in a box on LinkedIn and said "I'd like to connect with this person", if I've explicitly said I'm not interested in creating a LinkedIn account and not interested in receiving invites, then it is LinkedIn's responsibility to not send that email. LinkedIn is not an email provider, they have no obligation to that user to send me a message.
        arjie 13y ago
        That sounds broken. If I want to spam someone, I just need to set up a website that allows you to message users and then register for it myself and keep requesting to send messages. That sounds like the sort of obvious loophole you catch early on.
        sp332 13y ago
        You would have to go after the user for spamming you, not the email service that delivers the message.
- ToastyMallows 13y ago
  I've had this happen with Spotify. I connected my Facebook account and after a while I unconnected it, yet it still tells me to add people that I'm friends with on Facebook.
- bhelx 13y ago
  I deleted my account a couple years ago. I used to always get emails from people who were inviting me to join. The emails were from invitations@linkedin.com but contained the name of the person in the subject. The message also contained text that looked like it was from the person: On March 14, Person X wrote: > To: bhelx [bhelx@example.com] > From: Person X [personx@example.com] > Subject: Invitation to connect on LinkedIn > bhelx, > > I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. > > - PersonX The worst thing is I would get follow up emails "Reminder about your invitation from Person X" pretty regularly. I would unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of the email but I found that it was only unsubscribing me from receiving the follow up "reminder" emails from each person I unsubscribed from. It was really frustrating. I assume Linked In was explicitly requesting permission to do this.
donretag 13y ago
"Seriously, go check your inbox for an “Invitation to connect on LinkedIn”. They don’t come from *@linkedin.com, which THEY ABSOLUTELY SHOULD." Not true. I just checked the headers on a recent email and LinkedIn is definitely setting the From correctly: From: [redacted] via LinkedIn <member@linkedin.com> The Reply-To is the one of the user however.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  Yep. I just checked my mail and saw the same thing. Though my oldest invitations seem to be from the user themselves. Seems they changed it in 2010 to @linkedin.com.
- anotherbadlogin 13y ago
  Remember when LinkedIn's app was caught uploading meeting notes from your calendar? And despite several fiascoes, they haven't fixed their amateur-hour user-ID policy: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use-e-mail-address-as.html http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use...
- Karunamon 13y ago
  Yup, so not only is this article preachy and boring (seriously, how many "I'm quitting $socialnetwork and you should too" posts do we need?), but it's also factually wrong. Even if the from address was that of the user who sent the message, it's kind of hard to ignore the huge LinkedIn branding the message resides in. You'd have to be a fool to miss it, because I'm pretty sure even a blind person's screen reader would pick up on this.
  - sp332 13y ago
    It's not about fooling the human, it's about giving the spam filter a hard time.
    - snowwrestler 13y ago
      LinkedIn emails get through spam filters because they have properly configured email auth like SPF and DKIM, LinkedIn accounts are double-opt-in, and because LinkedIn works closely with major email providers like Google and Microsoft.
magicmarkker 13y ago
I did this like 2 months ago and it's been really great.
civilian 13y ago
I don't use LinkedIn like I use facebook. With facebook I'm checking in on friends. With LinkedIn I occasionally add professional contacts, and just maintain an update profile so that recruiters can search for me. The cracking-open-your-email that LinkedIn does, however, is really aggravating. I've never let linkedin access my email account to search for contacts.
uladzislau 13y ago
I'm afraid after you signed up for LinkedIn there's no way to completely remove your data. It might be a good idea to limit the information on your profile and keep it dormant.
birken 13y ago
I find linkedin is the most useful social network I'm a part of, even though I rarely visit it. I have made many professional connections, and linkedin aggregates them nicely and I find the periodic emails of people getting new jobs or new titles to be very interesting. I guess I am not as annoyed about the shady tactics as you are, I just ignore them. So I'm sorry that you don't like the site, but I politely decline your recommendation to delete my account.
- objclxt 13y ago
  Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn. I don't like the site, and I don't like the company. That said, I've had on-site interviews at Google, Facebook, and the like not via my StackOverflow profile (which is pretty good, 20k+), or my blog, but directly through being hit up on LinkedIn. I'm about to start a dream job next week, again after being contacted first on LinkedIn by my new employer. Perhaps it's alright if you can post online about all the great work you do, or you have a name for yourself in the industry, or you make lots of OSS contributions on GitHub. Unfortunately I don't have any of those (yet!). But I do have a LinkedIn profile, and that's what got me on the one-way flight from London to SF next week. I'm not defending LinkedIn as a company: I think they're pretty scummy. But if I didn't have my account, maybe I wouldn't have got this job.
  - ffrryuu 13y ago
    At this point, it's as if a lot of company have stopped accepting applicants except via LinkedIn. They find you, instead of you find them.
    - ryguytilidie 13y ago
      Recruiter here. Would you rather have an inbox with 2000 unqualified resumes or just go find qualified people yourself?
      - fredoliveira 13y ago
        It would be interesting to hear first hand what your process looks like, and why you might find Linkedin to be a better fit as opposed to something like SO (which obviously I'm not sure you do).
ypeterholmes 13y ago
Don't see much here. For many people LinkedIn is a good way to connect with other professionals, and you can always change your email settings. I'll need a better reason to delete it. This article just seems like someone who never saw the value in something deciding to get rid of it.
untog 13y ago
I haven't gone to the extent of deleting my account, but I have removed my entire work history and all details except a "contact me via another medium" message. I suppose it is at least a placeholder to stop anyone trying to impersonate me. But I have missed exactly zero content of worth. All I ever got were endless spammy e-mails from recruiters.
busterarm 13y ago
So glad that I've _never_ had one. They sketched me out right from the beginning.
yesimahuman 13y ago
I deleted mine a few weeks back. I was getting negative value of it in the form of spam and random connections I didn't actually know in person. In the developer world, LinkedIn is seen as marginal at best, and uncool at worst. Other industries? I don't know. I had someone tell me they get a lot of B2B value out of it in the bio med space. At any rate, I don't miss it for a second. I had to create a quick test account for a portal I was using and the signup process was just awfully deceptive. I deleted that one as well.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
phy6 13y ago
I'll delete my LinkedIn profile after I'm sure that I'll never want employment anywhere. This is essentially professional reputation/resume service, which eliminated my use of a half dozen job websites.
eliben 13y ago
I did, a while ago. Nothing useful came out of Linkedin for me, but tons and tons of spam. It took me months to get unsubscribed from all the spam.
liveinoakland 13y ago
If you are in a service industry (consulting, law, etc.), sales, or other business role, LinkedIn is absolutely critical for qualifying leads, being qualified, and networking. If you are a line-engineer, sure, you probably can delete it.
- ffrryuu 13y ago
  LinkedIn is essential for everyone, it's how you get the great jobs, versus say any job.
diminoten 13y ago
Wait, why should I delete mine too? Because their business model is, in the author's opinion, unsustainable? Because of the fact that the author gets spam from them (I have gmail filters set up such that I am not aware of any mail LinkedIn sends me)? This smells like just another hipster anti-culture movement. "LinkedIn is popular, down with LinkedIn!"
- phy6 13y ago
  I could not agree more. I'm getting real tired of seeing sensationalist platitudes on HN. Next up: 'Why I stopped going to the bathroom'. It's fine to buck the trends, it's a bit awkward to try and make other people taste your sour grapes.
chuckd1356 13y ago
The ability to shut off emails has been pretty easy, in my experience. Other than that, I find quite a bit of value from linkedin.
ChrisAntaki 13y ago
>> A quick scan of my Google account reveals that I have granted access to 49 different websites. AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MOST OF THEM ARE, OR WHAT PERMISSIONS I GAVE THEM. It really pays to observe what permissions are being asked for. When a flashlight app asks for your GPS, and network communication, you know something's amiss.
- sp332 13y ago
  Or it just wants to show ads.
Aloisius 13y ago
I get basically no LinkedIn mail and haven't for about a year. The settings are pretty easy to change [1][2][3] (though there are a lot of them) and they don't seem to roll out new settings and default them to on like Facebook used to. Occasionally I log in and check my messages and update my profile, especially when I need to look someone up or figure out how to get an introduction to someone, but generally I find LinkedIn to be pretty unobtrusive. I'm not sure lack of using it constantly is really a good rationale for closing an account though. Seems a bit short-sighted based on the value of having your second degree network so easily identifiable. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/settings/email-frequency?goback=.nas_*1_*1_*1 https://www.linkedin.com/settings/email-frequency?goback=.na... [2] https://www.linkedin.com/settings/partner-inmail?goback=%2Enas_*1_*1_*1 https://www.linkedin.com/settings/partner-inmail?goback=%2En... [3] https://www.linkedin.com/settings/research-invitations?goback=%2Enas_*1_*1_*1 https://www.linkedin.com/settings/research-invitations?gobac...
- justincormack 13y ago
  They have defaulted new emails to on in the past.
smtddr 13y ago
Well, to each their own. LinkedIn has added great value to me. My current job was because a recruiter found me on it. After researching the company, I knew I'd love it there. But, I babysit my LinkedIn account like other people tend to their Facebook. I comment on articles, posts updates, keep my profile up-to-date, share random things I find interesting. I do this daily, which is what I see people around me doing with Facebook.
- pjbrunet 13y ago
  Same here but I find few people comment on the articles or get involved in the comments. Seems that's one area where Google Plus is winning.
cpncrunch 13y ago
Yep, I was thinking exactly the same thing a couple of weeks ago. What annoys me more is the constant money grabbing - things like asking me to pay to view some people's profiles, asking me to pay to see who viewed my profile, etc. linkedin has provided me with zero value over the years. Anyway, I'm so pissed off at linkedin that I've spent the last couple of weeks developing my own lightweight, less evil alternative. Once it's complete I'm just going to update my linked profile to say something like 'see my full profile on ...'. If other people find it useful then they can use it too.
mindcrime 13y ago
OK, great, you don't find LinkedIn useful. I respect that, but I do not at all understand it. LinkedIn is about 100x more useful than Facebook in my life, even if I spend more raw time on Facebook (and I'm not 100% sure that's true, actually). I guess it depends on how you use LinkedIn, but for me, it's a marketing & promotion channel (via LI groups mainly), a constantly updated Rolodex, an expertise locator, and a source of information for market research, competitive intelligence and general industry awareness. Now, to be fair, I am a startup founder, where said startup is in the B2B space. Maybe that makes LinkedIn uniquely useful for me, compared to other folks who aren't in this position. I don't know, I just know that LinkedIn is wildly useful for me. shrug
niuzeta 13y ago
> A quick scan of my Google account reveals that I have granted access to 49 different websites. AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MOST OF THEM ARE, OR WHAT PERMISSIONS I GAVE THEM. Okay, at the risk of sounding arrogant, you have no rights to complain if you give out permission to 50 different websites without knowing what they do. You cannot complain that you are being exploited, when you allow yourself to be exploited. My google account is linked to fifteen different sites which I know what they are all for. > go check your inbox for an “Invitation to connect on LinkedIn”. They don’t come from @linkedin.com, which THEY ABSOLUTELY SHOULD Again, you gave them the permission to do so. And to play the devil's advocate, would you be less* likely to accept an invitation from your friend if he sent you an e-mail from some foreign account, or his account of which you are familiar? Again, you gave them the permission. If you don't like it, just make a linkedIn account without a connection to Google account. You've not done so because connecting to Google is convenient. You are paying a fair price. I get minimal number of e-mails from linkedIn because I didn't give them permission to send me every gritty details of other people. It does exactly what I told it to. Maybe you should as well.
- omnisci 13y ago
  Nope! It's easier to complain about it online! #angry #omg #whyisthishappeningtome?!?! I love the internets, technology and how we've progressed at an amazing rate. I also like how everyone has a voice, but at the same time...that part isn't always as shiny. I agree with your post 100%!
- pstack 13y ago
  Agreed. This is promiscuous behavior. One should occasionally check out their Google dashboard and see what's going on. A few times a year, I check out what has permission via my Google account and deactivate anything that I haven't used in awhile or no longer care about.
- mbildner 13y ago
  wrt your first point you are absolutely 100% right, and I said so in the article. I agree that failing to manage my login permissions exposes me to problems. But a system that makes it this easy for people to get screwed is a bad system. In my case the only downside is that I get annoying emails - but giving inbox permissions on fb or email exposes you to huuuuuge problems. People keep all kind of things there that they shouldn't - passwords, I'll bet you have ten friends with their social security or all kinds of PHI in their gmail. In my case I take responsibility for the silly emails I get because of it. I also go through fb and google permissions and cull them, but that is not always enough, especially if you're facing a malicious site. But my problem isn't how this affects me, it's how it affects users who don't understand the danger here - which is most people. Some people think the answer is either "everyone learns to code or everyone loses control/rights", but I think that doesn't make sense. You don't expect everyone who drives to fix their cars themselves, and when one breaks and hurts them you don't mock them for their carelessness in getting such a complicated piece of equipment (I hope). We always abstract complexity away from new technology so that it can be used conveniently and safely, which is great. In the same way I think people building complicated web tools should do so responsibly, so that their users don't expose themselves to problems by using them. You don't have to abuse access permissions to make a great tool, and I'm willing to bet that these controls will get more and more tightly controlled to keep things like this from happening. That's exactly what happened to Facebook's messaging api, which no longer permits developers to problematically send messages, to prevent spam.
snowwrestler 13y ago
Sending emails "from" your Gmail address has nothing to do with granting application access to your Gmail account. The former is basic spoofing; the same thing spammers do to make it look like "you" sent that C!alis email. Any mail server can put whatever they want in email fields, no special access required. The latter means that LinkedIn can actually harvest your list of contacts in Gmail for marketing. Way worse IMO and I encourage people to be very careful about what apps they authorize into their personal accounts like Google.
baddox 13y ago
I managed to delete my account about a year ago, on my second attempt. That was after two unsuccessful attempts to unsubscribe from literally all emails from them.
- alfiejohn_ 13y ago
  Before deleting my account, I unsubscribed from several groups. Yet two weeks later I was still getting daily updates from the unsubscribed groups. Also, even though I had unsubscribed and they were not on my group list, they still showed up on my public profile. After two support tickets, the emails stopped. Then I decided that LinkedIn was useless to me so I deleted my account. For two weeks, I still continued to get daily email updates even though I no longer had an account. After another support ticket, the emails stopped.
nikolakirev 13y ago
While deleting your account is certainly one of the options, I disabled all email notifications and removed all the recruiters that added me. Now I am careful about which requests I approve. Overall, LikedIn can be useful for connecting to new colleagues or former ones.
stekoz 13y ago
Ironically, yesterday I deleted my Linkedin account, just because it is totally useless for me and for 101% of those in my circles (or network or how you want to call it), except for a sense of doing the right thing and being professional in their social networking. Not to mention their dubious approach to password management, of course.
mswe 13y ago
Closed too. #Hate #Linkedin
- stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  #not #twitter
ffrryuu 13y ago
You are a nobody without a LinkedIn account.
kvcrawford 13y ago
Build a webapp for users to generate nice-looking, highly usable resumes. Host their resumes on public profile pages, maintaining complete openness (with an optional permissions model, of course). Offer a "Download Resume as PDF" option, so users can download their resume for emailing as an attachment. Let them own their data. Create such an awesome experience, that everyone is compelled to use it. Absolutely no paywalls for individual users. Design an awesome interface for companies to search through resumes. Implement algorithms for automated job-matching. Monetize on subscriptions to this, and on job postings, a la StackOverflow Careers. Watch LinkedIn crumble.
mbildner 13y ago
A bunch of people have (correctly, I think) pointed out that more recent LinkedIn emails come from them directly. I have seen emails as recent as 2012 sent from user addresses: http://imgur.com/gallery/fapPDhZ/new http://imgur.com/gallery/fapPDhZ/new (sorry for the manic smudging). Anyhow, assuming these are anomalous, and that LinkedIn has generally moved to sending emails properly, I still stand by my decision to close down my account. I haven't gotten anything useful out of it and I have been consistently annoyed by it. Not devastating, but like I said, annoying. If you use it and love it then great! I hope LinkedIn keeps on improving and becomes/stays (your option) a great company. But if you're not getting anything out of it, then I think it would behoove you to think twice about why you maintain the account, and if it's nothing but annoying then at least consider getting rid of it.
- pbreit 13y ago
  That's probably just a narrow situation where the sender knows your email address and is sending a message from within LinkedIn. It's not that LinkedIn has modified its email sending behavior in the past year or 2. I am sure you can confirm for us that the dozens or 100s of other emails you have received "from" LinkedIn are actually being send "From:" LinkedIn?
monkeynotes 13y ago
> Google is the holder of your information and manager of your identity I don't agree with this. Google may be the locker in which you put your information, but you hold the key to it. If you decide to give the key to 3rd parties that's your responsibility. People need to educate themselves about how their information can be used and abused. Perhaps someone needs to drive this education and perhaps Google can/should be a part of that, but they are in no way implicitly obliged. If you write your password down on a post-it and stick it to your computer screen, is that Google's responsibility?
aitkin 13y ago
As I was reading this article I received an email from a recruiter on LinkedIn...
chatman 13y ago
Articles like these dilute the seriousness of some of the other legit posts on why one should quit some other sites, e.g. Facebook.
voxmatt 13y ago
Although I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn, I think this article is a little off; as many point out, it's fairly easy to set email preferences on LinkedIn. This article was useful, however, as it reminded me that I've been meaning to delete my Path account. That I did delete today.
stevetursi 13y ago
I can't quit you, LinkedIn. On one hand, I hate it for all the reasons everyone has already mentioned. On the other, I wouldn't have my current job (which I love) if not for LinkedIn. And since that job has paid me something in the neighborhood of a quarter-million dollars over the last several years, that makes LinkedIn about a quarter-million dollars more valuable to me than all other social networks put together. I can't quit you, LinkedIn.
cowboy_coder 13y ago
LinkedIn is ripe for disruption. A great idea for a start-up but without LEO.
krapp 13y ago
I actually find Linkedin useful. I like being part of a social network whose focus is professionals. If only they weren't so smarmy. I used to be able to link my Behance.net portfolio and github there but I can't even see those apps anymore. It's sad, but I still go in and check my groups every day. I'll definitely sign up with whoever can do it better.
NovemberWest 13y ago
On skimming, the piece does not appear to provide any technical how to info nor does it indicate what it really means for the account to be officially closed. Can one really delete a LinkedIn account? I vaguely had the impression you could not really truly get rid of it.
salehenrahman 13y ago
I'm currently working at a job, where a recruiter reached out to me via LinkedIn. I'm glad I'm still a loyal LinkedIn user. Regardless, I wish you best of luck.
hawkharris 13y ago
LinkedIn would be three times as useful if it changed a single line of code. Instead of giving users the default "I'd like to add you to my professional network" placeholder text, LinkedIn should require users to explain how and why they want to connect with other professionals. Would this make it a bit harder to grow your network? Yes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It would put quality over quantity, making your connections more meaningful and requiring users to stop and think before sending someone a connect request (therefore cutting down on email spam).
lylemckeany 13y ago
I use unroll.me and that way I only see one daily digest of my LinkedIn emails and any other spammy things I signed up for at some point for some reason unbeknownst to me now.
benmorris 13y ago
LinkedIn has been a great way for me to build clients and put myself out there. I routinely get inquiries from my portfolio. I just recently landed a new client through LinkedIn. I'll keep it for now.
rogueSkib 13y ago
LinkedIn also sets some very annoying traps for its users. A few days ago, I received an email from LinkedIn displaying an old friend who wanted to connect. I was excited to see an old familiar face, so I logged in and eventually found a way to connect with him. Today, I received an email again for the same person, saying my invitation to connect was still standing. I clicked through the links in the email this time, and was walked through a multi-step tutorial, that tricked me into sending 16 invites to random people I have never met before. They had a list of potential connections, only one of which I wanted to make, so I took the time to uncheck all the other boxes beside strangers. When I hit their continue button, it told me I had sent 16 invitations ... apparently the list I had just seen was actually scrollable, but by design, it was very difficult to tell that there were 16 hidden users I had to scroll down to see. Very frustrating.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
stefap2 13y ago
i am pondering opening linkedin account. the idea of networking and possible job prospects are intriguing, but displaying my profile publicly creeps me out. also it seems better fitted for people with a straight career path. when applying for jobs i tend to target job postings with each resume, not sure how would that work with linkedin.
- pjbrunet 13y ago
  You can customize what's displayed on the public profile, section by section.
zeckalpha 13y ago
I deleted it when they had the password leak last year.
TallboyOne 13y ago
So I should delete my LinkedIn because YOU don't like it? Uh... ok....let me get right on that
bengrunfeld 13y ago
I checked my inbox. Every email from LinkedIn is 'member@linkedin.com' or some variation. It was kind of hard to believe the rest after that.
periferral 13y ago
so if I'm reading this correct, he hates linked in because they spam him with email? Gosh, its my resume. And recruiters call me. And I have all my recommendations in one place. sorry, but I'd like to hold on to my account if you dont mind.
skrebbel 13y ago
If you tell other people what they should do, at least have the decency of writing a READABLE ARTICLE. All I get from this is "author is angry".

157 points by mbildner 13y ago

sp332 13y ago

According to http://justdelete.me/ http://justdelete.me/ LinkedIn has been reported to send you emails even after you delete your account. I know one woman who kept getting invitation emails from another guy, even though he wasn't active on the site at all. She was so annoyed that (with her permission) I added her email address to my account so it would stop bugging her.

Zikes 13y ago
Wouldn't that run afoul of the CAN-SPAM act?
- sp332 13y ago
  Since the emails were supposedly sent at the behest of a user, I don't think it counts as unsolicited email.
  - Zikes 13y ago
    CAN-SPAM requires an option to unsubscribe, though.
    - sp332 13y ago
      It's not like Gmail adds a link to unsubscribe from all Gmail users' emails. If a user sends a message, LinkedIn can deliver it without falling afoul of CAN-SPAM.
      - Zikes 13y ago
        LinkedIn is sending the emails. Even if someone intentionally put my email address in a box on LinkedIn and said "I'd like to connect with this person", if I've explicitly said I'm not interested in creating a LinkedIn account and not interested in receiving invites, then it is LinkedIn's responsibility to not send that email. LinkedIn is not an email provider, they have no obligation to that user to send me a message.
      - arjie 13y ago
        That sounds broken. If I want to spam someone, I just need to set up a website that allows you to message users and then register for it myself and keep requesting to send messages. That sounds like the sort of obvious loophole you catch early on.
        sp332 13y ago
        You would have to go after the user for spamming you, not the email service that delivers the message.
ToastyMallows 13y ago
I've had this happen with Spotify. I connected my Facebook account and after a while I unconnected it, yet it still tells me to add people that I'm friends with on Facebook.
bhelx 13y ago
I deleted my account a couple years ago. I used to always get emails from people who were inviting me to join. The emails were from invitations@linkedin.com but contained the name of the person in the subject. The message also contained text that looked like it was from the person: On March 14, Person X wrote: > To: bhelx [bhelx@example.com] > From: Person X [personx@example.com] > Subject: Invitation to connect on LinkedIn > bhelx, > > I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. > > - PersonX The worst thing is I would get follow up emails "Reminder about your invitation from Person X" pretty regularly. I would unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of the email but I found that it was only unsubscribing me from receiving the follow up "reminder" emails from each person I unsubscribed from. It was really frustrating. I assume Linked In was explicitly requesting permission to do this.

donretag 13y ago

"Seriously, go check your inbox for an “Invitation to connect on LinkedIn”. They don’t come from *@linkedin.com, which THEY ABSOLUTELY SHOULD." Not true. I just checked the headers on a recent email and LinkedIn is definitely setting the From correctly: From: [redacted] via LinkedIn <member@linkedin.com> The Reply-To is the one of the user however.

Aloisius 13y ago
Yep. I just checked my mail and saw the same thing. Though my oldest invitations seem to be from the user themselves. Seems they changed it in 2010 to @linkedin.com.
anotherbadlogin 13y ago
Remember when LinkedIn's app was caught uploading meeting notes from your calendar? And despite several fiascoes, they haven't fixed their amateur-hour user-ID policy: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use-e-mail-address-as.html http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/06/forcing-people-to-use...
Karunamon 13y ago
Yup, so not only is this article preachy and boring (seriously, how many "I'm quitting $socialnetwork and you should too" posts do we need?), but it's also factually wrong. Even if the from address was that of the user who sent the message, it's kind of hard to ignore the huge LinkedIn branding the message resides in. You'd have to be a fool to miss it, because I'm pretty sure even a blind person's screen reader would pick up on this.
- sp332 13y ago
  It's not about fooling the human, it's about giving the spam filter a hard time.
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
    LinkedIn emails get through spam filters because they have properly configured email auth like SPF and DKIM, LinkedIn accounts are double-opt-in, and because LinkedIn works closely with major email providers like Google and Microsoft.

magicmarkker 13y ago

I did this like 2 months ago and it's been really great.

civilian 13y ago

I don't use LinkedIn like I use facebook. With facebook I'm checking in on friends. With LinkedIn I occasionally add professional contacts, and just maintain an update profile so that recruiters can search for me. The cracking-open-your-email that LinkedIn does, however, is really aggravating. I've never let linkedin access my email account to search for contacts.

uladzislau 13y ago

I'm afraid after you signed up for LinkedIn there's no way to completely remove your data. It might be a good idea to limit the information on your profile and keep it dormant.

birken 13y ago

I find linkedin is the most useful social network I'm a part of, even though I rarely visit it. I have made many professional connections, and linkedin aggregates them nicely and I find the periodic emails of people getting new jobs or new titles to be very interesting. I guess I am not as annoyed about the shady tactics as you are, I just ignore them. So I'm sorry that you don't like the site, but I politely decline your recommendation to delete my account.

objclxt 13y ago
Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn. I don't like the site, and I don't like the company. That said, I've had on-site interviews at Google, Facebook, and the like not via my StackOverflow profile (which is pretty good, 20k+), or my blog, but directly through being hit up on LinkedIn. I'm about to start a dream job next week, again after being contacted first on LinkedIn by my new employer. Perhaps it's alright if you can post online about all the great work you do, or you have a name for yourself in the industry, or you make lots of OSS contributions on GitHub. Unfortunately I don't have any of those (yet!). But I do have a LinkedIn profile, and that's what got me on the one-way flight from London to SF next week. I'm not defending LinkedIn as a company: I think they're pretty scummy. But if I didn't have my account, maybe I wouldn't have got this job.
- ffrryuu 13y ago
  At this point, it's as if a lot of company have stopped accepting applicants except via LinkedIn. They find you, instead of you find them.
  - ryguytilidie 13y ago
    Recruiter here. Would you rather have an inbox with 2000 unqualified resumes or just go find qualified people yourself?
    - fredoliveira 13y ago
      It would be interesting to hear first hand what your process looks like, and why you might find Linkedin to be a better fit as opposed to something like SO (which obviously I'm not sure you do).

ypeterholmes 13y ago

Don't see much here. For many people LinkedIn is a good way to connect with other professionals, and you can always change your email settings. I'll need a better reason to delete it. This article just seems like someone who never saw the value in something deciding to get rid of it.

untog 13y ago

I haven't gone to the extent of deleting my account, but I have removed my entire work history and all details except a "contact me via another medium" message. I suppose it is at least a placeholder to stop anyone trying to impersonate me. But I have missed exactly zero content of worth. All I ever got were endless spammy e-mails from recruiters.

busterarm 13y ago

So glad that I've _never_ had one. They sketched me out right from the beginning.

yesimahuman 13y ago

I deleted mine a few weeks back. I was getting negative value of it in the form of spam and random connections I didn't actually know in person. In the developer world, LinkedIn is seen as marginal at best, and uncool at worst. Other industries? I don't know. I had someone tell me they get a lot of B2B value out of it in the bio med space. At any rate, I don't miss it for a second. I had to create a quick test account for a portal I was using and the signup process was just awfully deceptive. I deleted that one as well.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

phy6 13y ago

I'll delete my LinkedIn profile after I'm sure that I'll never want employment anywhere. This is essentially professional reputation/resume service, which eliminated my use of a half dozen job websites.

eliben 13y ago

I did, a while ago. Nothing useful came out of Linkedin for me, but tons and tons of spam. It took me months to get unsubscribed from all the spam.

liveinoakland 13y ago

If you are in a service industry (consulting, law, etc.), sales, or other business role, LinkedIn is absolutely critical for qualifying leads, being qualified, and networking. If you are a line-engineer, sure, you probably can delete it.

ffrryuu 13y ago
LinkedIn is essential for everyone, it's how you get the great jobs, versus say any job.

diminoten 13y ago

Wait, why should I delete mine too? Because their business model is, in the author's opinion, unsustainable? Because of the fact that the author gets spam from them (I have gmail filters set up such that I am not aware of any mail LinkedIn sends me)? This smells like just another hipster anti-culture movement. "LinkedIn is popular, down with LinkedIn!"

phy6 13y ago
I could not agree more. I'm getting real tired of seeing sensationalist platitudes on HN. Next up: 'Why I stopped going to the bathroom'. It's fine to buck the trends, it's a bit awkward to try and make other people taste your sour grapes.

chuckd1356 13y ago

The ability to shut off emails has been pretty easy, in my experience. Other than that, I find quite a bit of value from linkedin.

ChrisAntaki 13y ago

>> A quick scan of my Google account reveals that I have granted access to 49 different websites. AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MOST OF THEM ARE, OR WHAT PERMISSIONS I GAVE THEM. It really pays to observe what permissions are being asked for. When a flashlight app asks for your GPS, and network communication, you know something's amiss.

sp332 13y ago
Or it just wants to show ads.

Aloisius 13y ago

I get basically no LinkedIn mail and haven't for about a year. The settings are pretty easy to change [1][2][3] (though there are a lot of them) and they don't seem to roll out new settings and default them to on like Facebook used to. Occasionally I log in and check my messages and update my profile, especially when I need to look someone up or figure out how to get an introduction to someone, but generally I find LinkedIn to be pretty unobtrusive. I'm not sure lack of using it constantly is really a good rationale for closing an account though. Seems a bit short-sighted based on the value of having your second degree network so easily identifiable. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/settings/email-frequency?goback=.nas_*1_*1_*1 https://www.linkedin.com/settings/email-frequency?goback=.na... [2] https://www.linkedin.com/settings/partner-inmail?goback=%2Enas_*1_*1_*1 https://www.linkedin.com/settings/partner-inmail?goback=%2En... [3] https://www.linkedin.com/settings/research-invitations?goback=%2Enas_*1_*1_*1 https://www.linkedin.com/settings/research-invitations?gobac...

justincormack 13y ago
They have defaulted new emails to on in the past.

smtddr 13y ago

Well, to each their own. LinkedIn has added great value to me. My current job was because a recruiter found me on it. After researching the company, I knew I'd love it there. But, I babysit my LinkedIn account like other people tend to their Facebook. I comment on articles, posts updates, keep my profile up-to-date, share random things I find interesting. I do this daily, which is what I see people around me doing with Facebook.

pjbrunet 13y ago
Same here but I find few people comment on the articles or get involved in the comments. Seems that's one area where Google Plus is winning.

cpncrunch 13y ago

Yep, I was thinking exactly the same thing a couple of weeks ago. What annoys me more is the constant money grabbing - things like asking me to pay to view some people's profiles, asking me to pay to see who viewed my profile, etc. linkedin has provided me with zero value over the years. Anyway, I'm so pissed off at linkedin that I've spent the last couple of weeks developing my own lightweight, less evil alternative. Once it's complete I'm just going to update my linked profile to say something like 'see my full profile on ...'. If other people find it useful then they can use it too.

mindcrime 13y ago

OK, great, you don't find LinkedIn useful. I respect that, but I do not at all understand it. LinkedIn is about 100x more useful than Facebook in my life, even if I spend more raw time on Facebook (and I'm not 100% sure that's true, actually). I guess it depends on how you use LinkedIn, but for me, it's a marketing & promotion channel (via LI groups mainly), a constantly updated Rolodex, an expertise locator, and a source of information for market research, competitive intelligence and general industry awareness. Now, to be fair, I am a startup founder, where said startup is in the B2B space. Maybe that makes LinkedIn uniquely useful for me, compared to other folks who aren't in this position. I don't know, I just know that LinkedIn is wildly useful for me. shrug

niuzeta 13y ago

> A quick scan of my Google account reveals that I have granted access to 49 different websites. AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MOST OF THEM ARE, OR WHAT PERMISSIONS I GAVE THEM. Okay, at the risk of sounding arrogant, you have no rights to complain if you give out permission to 50 different websites without knowing what they do. You cannot complain that you are being exploited, when you allow yourself to be exploited. My google account is linked to fifteen different sites which I know what they are all for. > go check your inbox for an “Invitation to connect on LinkedIn”. They don’t come from @linkedin.com, which THEY ABSOLUTELY SHOULD Again, you gave them the permission to do so. And to play the devil's advocate, would you be less* likely to accept an invitation from your friend if he sent you an e-mail from some foreign account, or his account of which you are familiar? Again, you gave them the permission. If you don't like it, just make a linkedIn account without a connection to Google account. You've not done so because connecting to Google is convenient. You are paying a fair price. I get minimal number of e-mails from linkedIn because I didn't give them permission to send me every gritty details of other people. It does exactly what I told it to. Maybe you should as well.

omnisci 13y ago
Nope! It's easier to complain about it online! #angry #omg #whyisthishappeningtome?!?! I love the internets, technology and how we've progressed at an amazing rate. I also like how everyone has a voice, but at the same time...that part isn't always as shiny. I agree with your post 100%!
pstack 13y ago
Agreed. This is promiscuous behavior. One should occasionally check out their Google dashboard and see what's going on. A few times a year, I check out what has permission via my Google account and deactivate anything that I haven't used in awhile or no longer care about.
mbildner 13y ago
wrt your first point you are absolutely 100% right, and I said so in the article. I agree that failing to manage my login permissions exposes me to problems. But a system that makes it this easy for people to get screwed is a bad system. In my case the only downside is that I get annoying emails - but giving inbox permissions on fb or email exposes you to huuuuuge problems. People keep all kind of things there that they shouldn't - passwords, I'll bet you have ten friends with their social security or all kinds of PHI in their gmail. In my case I take responsibility for the silly emails I get because of it. I also go through fb and google permissions and cull them, but that is not always enough, especially if you're facing a malicious site. But my problem isn't how this affects me, it's how it affects users who don't understand the danger here - which is most people. Some people think the answer is either "everyone learns to code or everyone loses control/rights", but I think that doesn't make sense. You don't expect everyone who drives to fix their cars themselves, and when one breaks and hurts them you don't mock them for their carelessness in getting such a complicated piece of equipment (I hope). We always abstract complexity away from new technology so that it can be used conveniently and safely, which is great. In the same way I think people building complicated web tools should do so responsibly, so that their users don't expose themselves to problems by using them. You don't have to abuse access permissions to make a great tool, and I'm willing to bet that these controls will get more and more tightly controlled to keep things like this from happening. That's exactly what happened to Facebook's messaging api, which no longer permits developers to problematically send messages, to prevent spam.

snowwrestler 13y ago

Sending emails "from" your Gmail address has nothing to do with granting application access to your Gmail account. The former is basic spoofing; the same thing spammers do to make it look like "you" sent that C!alis email. Any mail server can put whatever they want in email fields, no special access required. The latter means that LinkedIn can actually harvest your list of contacts in Gmail for marketing. Way worse IMO and I encourage people to be very careful about what apps they authorize into their personal accounts like Google.

baddox 13y ago

I managed to delete my account about a year ago, on my second attempt. That was after two unsuccessful attempts to unsubscribe from literally all emails from them.

alfiejohn_ 13y ago
Before deleting my account, I unsubscribed from several groups. Yet two weeks later I was still getting daily updates from the unsubscribed groups. Also, even though I had unsubscribed and they were not on my group list, they still showed up on my public profile. After two support tickets, the emails stopped. Then I decided that LinkedIn was useless to me so I deleted my account. For two weeks, I still continued to get daily email updates even though I no longer had an account. After another support ticket, the emails stopped.

nikolakirev 13y ago

While deleting your account is certainly one of the options, I disabled all email notifications and removed all the recruiters that added me. Now I am careful about which requests I approve. Overall, LikedIn can be useful for connecting to new colleagues or former ones.

stekoz 13y ago

Ironically, yesterday I deleted my Linkedin account, just because it is totally useless for me and for 101% of those in my circles (or network or how you want to call it), except for a sense of doing the right thing and being professional in their social networking. Not to mention their dubious approach to password management, of course.

mswe 13y ago

Closed too. #Hate #Linkedin

stefantalpalaru 13y ago
#not #twitter

ffrryuu 13y ago

You are a nobody without a LinkedIn account.

kvcrawford 13y ago

Build a webapp for users to generate nice-looking, highly usable resumes. Host their resumes on public profile pages, maintaining complete openness (with an optional permissions model, of course). Offer a "Download Resume as PDF" option, so users can download their resume for emailing as an attachment. Let them own their data. Create such an awesome experience, that everyone is compelled to use it. Absolutely no paywalls for individual users. Design an awesome interface for companies to search through resumes. Implement algorithms for automated job-matching. Monetize on subscriptions to this, and on job postings, a la StackOverflow Careers. Watch LinkedIn crumble.

mbildner 13y ago

A bunch of people have (correctly, I think) pointed out that more recent LinkedIn emails come from them directly. I have seen emails as recent as 2012 sent from user addresses: http://imgur.com/gallery/fapPDhZ/new http://imgur.com/gallery/fapPDhZ/new (sorry for the manic smudging). Anyhow, assuming these are anomalous, and that LinkedIn has generally moved to sending emails properly, I still stand by my decision to close down my account. I haven't gotten anything useful out of it and I have been consistently annoyed by it. Not devastating, but like I said, annoying. If you use it and love it then great! I hope LinkedIn keeps on improving and becomes/stays (your option) a great company. But if you're not getting anything out of it, then I think it would behoove you to think twice about why you maintain the account, and if it's nothing but annoying then at least consider getting rid of it.

pbreit 13y ago
That's probably just a narrow situation where the sender knows your email address and is sending a message from within LinkedIn. It's not that LinkedIn has modified its email sending behavior in the past year or 2. I am sure you can confirm for us that the dozens or 100s of other emails you have received "from" LinkedIn are actually being send "From:" LinkedIn?

monkeynotes 13y ago

> Google is the holder of your information and manager of your identity I don't agree with this. Google may be the locker in which you put your information, but you hold the key to it. If you decide to give the key to 3rd parties that's your responsibility. People need to educate themselves about how their information can be used and abused. Perhaps someone needs to drive this education and perhaps Google can/should be a part of that, but they are in no way implicitly obliged. If you write your password down on a post-it and stick it to your computer screen, is that Google's responsibility?

aitkin 13y ago

As I was reading this article I received an email from a recruiter on LinkedIn...

chatman 13y ago

Articles like these dilute the seriousness of some of the other legit posts on why one should quit some other sites, e.g. Facebook.

voxmatt 13y ago

Although I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn, I think this article is a little off; as many point out, it's fairly easy to set email preferences on LinkedIn. This article was useful, however, as it reminded me that I've been meaning to delete my Path account. That I did delete today.

stevetursi 13y ago

I can't quit you, LinkedIn. On one hand, I hate it for all the reasons everyone has already mentioned. On the other, I wouldn't have my current job (which I love) if not for LinkedIn. And since that job has paid me something in the neighborhood of a quarter-million dollars over the last several years, that makes LinkedIn about a quarter-million dollars more valuable to me than all other social networks put together. I can't quit you, LinkedIn.

cowboy_coder 13y ago

LinkedIn is ripe for disruption. A great idea for a start-up but without LEO.

krapp 13y ago

I actually find Linkedin useful. I like being part of a social network whose focus is professionals. If only they weren't so smarmy. I used to be able to link my Behance.net portfolio and github there but I can't even see those apps anymore. It's sad, but I still go in and check my groups every day. I'll definitely sign up with whoever can do it better.

NovemberWest 13y ago

On skimming, the piece does not appear to provide any technical how to info nor does it indicate what it really means for the account to be officially closed. Can one really delete a LinkedIn account? I vaguely had the impression you could not really truly get rid of it.

salehenrahman 13y ago

I'm currently working at a job, where a recruiter reached out to me via LinkedIn. I'm glad I'm still a loyal LinkedIn user. Regardless, I wish you best of luck.

hawkharris 13y ago

LinkedIn would be three times as useful if it changed a single line of code. Instead of giving users the default "I'd like to add you to my professional network" placeholder text, LinkedIn should require users to explain how and why they want to connect with other professionals. Would this make it a bit harder to grow your network? Yes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It would put quality over quantity, making your connections more meaningful and requiring users to stop and think before sending someone a connect request (therefore cutting down on email spam).

lylemckeany 13y ago

I use unroll.me and that way I only see one daily digest of my LinkedIn emails and any other spammy things I signed up for at some point for some reason unbeknownst to me now.

benmorris 13y ago

LinkedIn has been a great way for me to build clients and put myself out there. I routinely get inquiries from my portfolio. I just recently landed a new client through LinkedIn. I'll keep it for now.

rogueSkib 13y ago

LinkedIn also sets some very annoying traps for its users. A few days ago, I received an email from LinkedIn displaying an old friend who wanted to connect. I was excited to see an old familiar face, so I logged in and eventually found a way to connect with him. Today, I received an email again for the same person, saying my invitation to connect was still standing. I clicked through the links in the email this time, and was walked through a multi-step tutorial, that tricked me into sending 16 invites to random people I have never met before. They had a list of potential connections, only one of which I wanted to make, so I took the time to uncheck all the other boxes beside strangers. When I hit their continue button, it told me I had sent 16 invitations ... apparently the list I had just seen was actually scrollable, but by design, it was very difficult to tell that there were 16 hidden users I had to scroll down to see. Very frustrating.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

stefap2 13y ago

i am pondering opening linkedin account. the idea of networking and possible job prospects are intriguing, but displaying my profile publicly creeps me out. also it seems better fitted for people with a straight career path. when applying for jobs i tend to target job postings with each resume, not sure how would that work with linkedin.

pjbrunet 13y ago
You can customize what's displayed on the public profile, section by section.

zeckalpha 13y ago

I deleted it when they had the password leak last year.

TallboyOne 13y ago

So I should delete my LinkedIn because YOU don't like it? Uh... ok....let me get right on that

bengrunfeld 13y ago

I checked my inbox. Every email from LinkedIn is 'member@linkedin.com' or some variation. It was kind of hard to believe the rest after that.

periferral 13y ago

so if I'm reading this correct, he hates linked in because they spam him with email? Gosh, its my resume. And recruiters call me. And I have all my recommendations in one place. sorry, but I'd like to hold on to my account if you dont mind.

skrebbel 13y ago

If you tell other people what they should do, at least have the decency of writing a READABLE ARTICLE. All I get from this is "author is angry".