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Linked In... too linked in?

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wraith808:
I keep my personal and professional profiles/lives separate.  It's a pretty artificial demarcation, and I know that with effort someone can cross the streams.  But that effort is the point.

On linked in, I have a profile.  I've never linked it with one of my personal profiles, I've never availed myself of the search your contact list (which I think is a bad way to get a list of contacts for a professional profile in any case, but oh well), and use my professional e-mail.  Up until recently, its been fine.

But over the last few days/weeks, I've noticed contacts from my personal life coming up on the you may know this person.  The creepier thing about it is that some of them I haven't corresponded with in literally years.  So the only place that this could have come from is my e-mail.  That I've never given them the password to.

Something is rotten.  Very rotten.  And I'd drop linked in- other than the fact that I do legitimately use it for business contacts.

Why can't companies just stick to doing things well rather than trying to play underhanded tactics?

cyberdiva:
Though I would NEVER let LinkedIn, Facebook, or any other social network have access to my email addressbook, some people I know apparently do give access to these organizations.  If your email address is in their email addressbook, especially if it's the same or very similar to the one you've used for your account in that organization, that fact may generate a "do you know this person" message to you from, say, LinkedIn.  It has certainly happened to me.  :o

app103:
There are a few ways that people get recommended on social networks.

One, as you guessed, is that you allow access to your contact list, through your email account.

Another, is that someone else may have given them access to their contact list, and you may be on it.

Initially, that person would be given the opportunity to add or invite you, first, but if they don't, you might be offered the opportunity, later on, to add them. The fact that there is a relationship between the 2 of you, has already been established through their email contact list, and the site now knows this.

This is a rather nasty underhanded thing for social networks to do, but any social network that encourages you to share your contact list with them, must be assumed to be doing this, since most do.

People really need to stop sharing their data with sites in this way, because the privacy implications affect other people as you have been a witness to.

About the only way you can control things and prevent other people from sharing your data in a way that connects the 2 of you on their site is to sign up for each social network with a brand new email address that is used only for signing up for social networks. It won't be in anybody else's contact list.

TaoPhoenix:
About the only way you can control things and prevent other people from sharing your data in a way that connects the 2 of you on their site is to sign up for each social network with a brand new email address that is used only for signing up for social networks. It won't be in anybody else's contact list.
-app103 (March 12, 2013, 11:43 AM)
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I basically did that, creating a brand new email account for my job search activities, so wherever that floats around is generally "networking", though it does end up in a few amusing places. One wrinkle y'all might watch out for is that sometimes if you add someone with your new work search email they'll add you back wit *your other email* and then the tendrils of social networking begin to burrow in like some alien monster.

40hz:
I keep my personal and professional profiles/lives separate.  It's a pretty artificial demarcation, and I know that with effort someone can cross the streams.  But that effort is the point.
-wraith808 (March 12, 2013, 09:29 AM)
--- End quote ---

And that's about as good as it gets if you're going to participate at all. I have the smallest web profile and presence (by design) of anybody I know. And even then, I wind up in things without my knowledge or consent.

Best to just do what you can and not worry about it too much. Because short of setting up an alternate identity - and using it exclusively from day one - there's no longer much hope of being completely invisible online any more. And that's not something that's ever going to change short of an infocalypse. And I don't think many of us would welcome the chance to experience something like that.
 :tellme:

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