Is LinkedIn Being Sued for Doing Just What It Says It Will Do?
Perhaps many LinkedIn users fail to read the Terms of Service that give it a perpetual and irrevocable license to use information pretty much as it pleases. Based on LinkedIn’s ToS and Privacy Policy, LinkedIn is transparent about its collection of users’ address books, contacts and calendars, with the apparent purpose of encouraging more communications between users and their connected friends.
A class action asserting that LinkedIn harvests and sells users’ email addresses was brought in September 2013. More than a month after the lawsuit was filed, LinkedIn still uses the same approach to collect email addresses and personal information — that is, it encourages users to “sync your contacts. Stay in touch. Bring your email, contacts, and calendar in one place.”
LinkedIn is “the world’s largest professional network with 225 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the globe,” the company claims in its response to the class action suit.