Today, his name popped up as a “people you may know” suggestion. I was quite surprised to see this, and when I clicked on the link it took me to a profile for another man from Rwanda with the same name, whose profile is entirely in French.

Because the person LinkedIn recommended is someone I do not know, there is no chance he was searching for me. Likewise, nobody I know has connected with that person because he is clearly not the tour guide we met last year. LinkedIn absolutely must be accessing my other data, probably Facebook, and made a recommendation when it saw a profile in Rwanda that seemed to match one of my Facebook contacts. There is no other possible explanation.

Sue-
The point is that LinkedIn is not a “social” networking site. It’s a Professional Networking site, therefore I shouldn’t be getting contacted by or connected to people on a non-professional basis.

The problems there lie within the fact that people like you treat it like a “social” networking site. The results of this attitude are turning it into a completely non-professional social network.

I have full control over where/who/how my info is getting put out there on the internet so when it shows up in a way that I know was impossible based on the security measures I practice, it gets a little questionable.

Just sayin….

Who CARES how they suggest connections? If you are on the internet you should not get all anal retentive about your “privacy.”

The whole POINT of being on Linked in, or any other site, is to make connections. They might not be friends, clients or referral sources YET – but it’s a Kevin Bacon world and you never know when a connection with someone will bring something wonderful into your life.

If you want to shut yourself off from the world and interact only with people you already know – get off the internet and just pick up the phone and call them.

Just saying…

I have had people on my list recently that I have never heard of, and one guy who I emailed ONCE only ONCE about 4 years ago. He responded once and I did not contact him again.
Again this happened four years ago!!
So how, all of a sudden does he show up on my list?

Again no facebook, no searches for this guy I am not even using the same computer or hard drive either. I have had about six computers since this contact.
In fact I don’t even have the same email address, I have a completely different address now.
I am getting people on my list that I have ONLY ever had minimal email contact with and nothing else.

This really is ridiculous and it is creepy and I am opting out asap.

This morning, on the other hand, when I got the “PYMK” suggestions, there was one very odd suggestion that stuck out.

I did, in fact know this person although, there is no digital, internet, email, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or 50th secondary person I know connection, in fact there is no connection other than person to person, via telephone, and a personal home address connection (the owner of the guest house I live in). The thing is that I’ve NEVER been connected to this person via LinkedIn and I’ve never made my personal home address available as public domain via LinkedIn, Facebook, My Personal Website, or anywhere else that didn’t involve some sort of secure transaction via PayPal or other source.

I regularly clear my cookies and history after every browsing session (I’m kinda OCD) but even if that wasn’t the case, there would be no connection via the internet way of websites I’ve visited or email to connect me to this person. I also run NoScript which is a very efficient add-on for preventing 3rd party scripts, and code to be running in the background of websites.

This single mishap alone has left me to believe that LinkedIn is using other resources to gain information about you other than what you provide via LinkedIn or the Internet. They have gone past the digital spectrum to a whole different 3rd party source. The only way they would have been able to find this information is scouring public domain via Postal, City, State records that are made public including mailing address, etc. Is this legal?

Anyone’s input on this would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Travis