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

Ghostery combined with a VPN like witopia.net (fee)–gives you https from your computer and back from a selection of gateways around the world on the fly–you can build some semblance of privacy.

Peter, in his thoughtful posts above, stresses that LinkedIn customer service says no, it has nothing to do with Facebook. But I’ll bet a day’s wages that they have something to do with one of these 700 data trackers. And I’m sure Facebook sells their data to one of them too.

I feel anxious just waiting for him to make contact – but think that may be he likes the idea that he is popping up on my linked-in homepage and there’s nothing I can do it about it. Or maybe he has just been looking at my profile?

Linked-in can’t assure me that they can remove him from my ‘people you may know’ stream without reporting him – which they can’t do as he hasn’t done anything wrong (yet).

The stalker mentality is complicated aswell – if they were to contact him and say this girl has contacted us to say she doesn’t want you to contact her – then he will read that as ‘aha she has been thinking about me, I have an effect on her’ and will redouble his efforts to harrass me.

I wish there was a way to simply block people so that the two accounts never ‘meet’.

For those people saying “This is social networking – what did you expect?” I’d like to counter that if in the real world there are unpleasant people that you would avoid by crossing the street that you should be able to do the same online.

I feel this is discriminatory because it only leaves me (and others like me) the option of cancelling linked-in and then I would be at a professional disadvantage from my peers – having a significant real-world impact.

The outcome of this so far is that I’m just living with the anxiety and hoping that he will eventually go away. But if he starts to contact me again and I’ll delete my linked account.

it seems linkedin takes an approach that is to just repeat and reveal very little.

here’s an exchange i had with linkedin cust support about this:
me:
So, to be clear, there have been no contacts imported from my gmail address book, right? The only contacts/invitations that have been sent out are those that i manually requested in my sent inbox, yes? And the ‘people you may know’ suggestions (where people that I have no connection with and are not in my network and were people that I had liaised with on one occasion over 2 years ago regarding rentals or
purchases via craigslist) were coincidental?

Please confirm so I am 100% clear.
In advance, I appreciate you tending to this query.
Thanks

linkedin support:
You are correct.

Please let me know if you have further questions and thanks for using LinkedIn!

Regards,

Holly
LinkedIn Customer Service

Only thing I can think of is that linkedin combs my other email accounts and that is ridiculous.

Just say the word.

There are many stories or occurances above that mirror mine.

I have avoided joining any online social network sites since they have proved to be an utter violation of my privacy. I had a facebook account which I “deleted” over a year ago as a result of feeling overly exposed and violated. A month ago, I logged back in to see if the account was in fact deleted. No such thing. It was deactivated. Seems since then, FB have listened to users about wanting the option to fully delete, in which case, I then changed all information – such as email address – and deleted all contents and then actually “deleted” the account. I can only hope the info was deleted.

Moving on to Linkedin, after many recommendations about the sites usefulness and respect of privacy, I joined. Since it is more a professional based website, I set it up using my gmail account. Of course, I avoided using the “add contacts from email address book” tool and yet, without seeking/searching to connect certain individuals, many contacts from my gmail address book were showing up in the “people you may know” section. Some people were ex friends or ex boyfriends that the mere sight of sent me into a mild anxiety attack and fueled warranted anger.

I’ve been reading the comments above regarding the notion that whilst I may have not merged my gmail address book contacts, perhaps the said people I’d prefer to avoid (who are showing up in “people you may know”) have merged THEIR email contacts. I’ve also considered the notion that perhaps they are being suggested based on previous Linkedin searches or perhaps google searches.

Let me state some facts that completely refute these possibilities…

There are 4 contacts thus far that have appeared in my “people you may know” that whilst THEY may have merged their address books with THEIR Linkedin accounts (idiots) meaning I may appear in THEIR “people you may know”, how is it possible that they are people being suggested for me when I have not merged mine? Secondly, one of the suggestions in particular; I unfortunately know well enough to know that he would in no way on this planet merge his contacts to HIS email since we’ve shared lengthy discussion in the past about our concerns with regards to online privacy and ways we go about avoiding being a victim of violation. I have NEVER been connected via facebook with this particular individual that is being suggested to me. AND my gmail account was never initially linked to my facebook. Nor was it when I changed the email address before deleting. How in the hell is this particular individual coming up as a person suggestion in my Linkedin?

Needless to say, I set up a whole new email address and added it to Linkedin and removed my original gmail email address. I doubt that will make a difference the info they have already “raped” from my gmail contacts. Or, do you think it will, Peter?

To digress, I have one more question since we are on the topic of privacy and discretion…

I do not have a google plus account/profile. Neither do I use the picasa picture storing facility. Yet, I do have a gmail account and stay logged in pretty much all the time. In the event that I am logged into gmail and open a new window tab and go to google and search an individual who DOES have a gmail account AND/OR a picasa/google plus profile, will that user see that I have browsed his/her profile?

Please advise.

I’m really quite annoyed with how technologies advancements in online interaction has stripped an individuals right to privacy and discretion. Must we return to the dark ages to retain some privacy?

Anyway, Peter, please advise on the above and how you would like to proceed with taking up this seemingly questionable obtaining of information via Linkedin since their privacy policy (and your direct response from the sites admin/customer service) state otherwise.

best

S