How does LinkedIn make connections ?

[KristinaM]

I signed up to LinkedIn because I was looking for an old school friend . I used a false name and hotmail email address as I have personal ( family ) reasons for not wanting to be particularly visible online or have a publicly searchable profile .

I didn't give any details of my current or former job or education.

I then got emails from LinkedIn with suggestions of " people you may know". These included several people I work with and some clients . I have no idea how this has happened and I find it very worrying

None of these people are in my contacts on the email account I used
I have never searched for them on LinkedIn.
They cannot have searched for me on LinkedIn as I used a pseudonym.
There is no link between my currect job and the old school friend I searched for on LinkedIn .
I work in a very specialised field . There's probably less than a few hundred people doing this job in the UK.

I can only conclude that LinkedIn has somehow accessed my work email account, which is on the same device on which I set up the LinkedIn account. Is this correct ?

Could it be through the IPS or something? Don't know - I push buttons and expect them to work!!!

What ya mean -you push buttons and expect them to work ????

You sound just like me. I thought this was where all the geeky clever people hung out, who knew all about that technical stuff .

I asked Dh who is reasonably knowledgable about geeky stuff and he said helpfully " I don't know , ask on Mumsnet . I'd like to know too "

Mm, I've recently heard VERY bad things about what LinkedIn does with not only your data but the data it gets re searches and people linked to you.

Course I can't remember exact details now, but I do remember it went straight to the top of my Creepiest Website list.

They can only get information from what you have provided them with.
Did you look anyone up? It's probably making suggestions from your searches.

I set up a fake LinkedIn profile with an unused email address. It didn't come up with any connections I knew.

Indeed, it's is Very Creepy

Computers scare me. Earlier today i thought "im going to paint my front door". I opened up my laptop and up pops a dulux ad. I literally only thought about paint. I hadnt been on any diy sites or looked at colours. 0_o

The person I looked up ( old school friend ) is not remotely connected to the business I work in now, where is where all the suggested connections are from .

Some of them are in my work email address list. One of them isn't my client, but one of my colleagues clients . I've never emailed him but my colleague has. That's why I think they must have accessed my company work email contacts, not just mine . Two of the suggested connections actually work for the same company as me .

It's very specific so I know it's not just random

I wondered if it was accessing the cookies on my browser. But in that case it should be suggesting contacts who work for top shop or clarks or indeed Mumsnet . I can't remember when I last looked at our companies website at home ( it's not updated very often )

I've had similar to what you describe on my fake Facebook a/c (don't have a real one, just use this when friends annoyingly organise weddings over FB).

I decided I must have hit Return before I could stop myself, when an extra step sprang up in the log-in sequence - kindly offering to add any other googlemail addresses on the computer to the FB account.

I had no joy at getting to the bottom of it (my computer expertise also being limited to pushing buttons and hoping), but someone suggested cookies.

So I can't illuminate, but I'm damn careful now never to hit Return/OK until I'm absolutely sure what's going on.

LinkedIn were being sued for accessing email addresses and sending invites without permission, so it's possible that is what has happened.

I wouldn't use a pseudonym on LinkedIn. They get funny about it. Also, if it has looked at your inbox, it'll have told everyone the pseudonym anyway.

How about cookies to do with your other email address? Contents of your address book?

All of these packages which offer to rifle your address book for you - to be helpful! - when you open a new account, creep me out. (Dropbox, I'm looking at you.)

Sorry, x-posting all over the shop here.

Did you by any chance use the LinkedIn app on a phone which contained your contact details?

This has happened to me too, and it is very very bizzare.

It depends on what you were using at the time and what the permissions you signed up for, knowingly or unknowingly.
If your device has a contacts list it may have read that and used that to make connections.

I haven't heard this of LinkedIn, but does this article give you an idea?

www.businessinsider.com/this-is-how-facebook-is-tracking-your-internet-activity-2012-9?op=1

I would suggest using private browsing (Chrome & Firefox both have this) to reduce the snooping possibilities.

Yes, I used it on my ipad which has all my work details and contacts. But I didn't use my work email account to set it up , I used a yahoo account which isnt in my real name either and isn't linked to any other email account

More suggestions here: lifehacker.com/5887140/everyones-trying-to-track-what-you-do-on-the-web-heres-how-to-stop-them

Thanks for that link

What interesting is that I use the same ( false ) name and email account for Facebook and I've never had any suggested contacts or advertising , except linked to

Friends of friends on Facebook and
Advertising linked to websites I've visited

I've never had anything linked to my real name, my work or work contacts on Facebook

That'll be it then. It will have read your contacts file. Not sure of the legalities but if you read the t&cs it probably reads cached data or local contact info.
Doesn't matter that you specified a different email; it reads your device.

I think the giveaway is that you were on your iPad. If you used their app to sign up you have given them access to all your work details and contacts. It doesn't matter that you used a different email account. Their app has free run of the contacts list and certain other information on your iPad.

Also if anyone has the email address you used in their contacts list and allowed LinkedIn to upload their contacts they would automatically be offered to you as a possible connection.

Aargh I hate LinkedIn.
It invited everyone I'd ever had contact with to connect with me, including XP who I am NC with.
Really embarrassing.
I left really soon after that and block all emails from them.
They treat even non users as if they subscribed to the service, until you go through the process of kicking yourself off their lists.

I'm getting really annoyed at the number of apps which assume they should be allowed to look at your contacts list. I've got an account with no actual contacts and minimal information (just my initial and surname, so I get to be quite common in phone books etc) which I use for Google+, Disqus, etc,

I did try out Twitter 3+ years ago and even registered with LinkedIn (which found some people I'd really not have expected, such as a senior lecturer who left the place (we worked at) in 1985.

A school friend living in Denmark did get in touch having found me from a search which came across a page on someone else's website, but luckily I've had very few unexpected contacts from people I'm happy to have lost touch with (!)

I'd recommend using SpamGourmet.com which allows you to create unique e-mail address for every web site you use (and forwards to your real e-mail account). If the website you use is hacked, or sells mail addresses, you can let SpamGourmet nosh on the mail messages. It will, by default, after 20 items, unless you act to 'whitelist' wanted senders, but you can set a low limit and it will gobble thousands of mail messages without you ever being interrupted by them.

Here are stats the website about one of my several SpamGourmet user accounts:

Your message stats: 24,037 forwarded, 31,585 eaten.
You have 348 disposable address(es).

NB I have 300,000 items of unread mail right now, sitting in at least half a dozen Google Mail accounts, this spamgourmet account forwards to just one of the Google accounts.

I would estimate that at least 100,000 junk messages didn't get to me and were swallowed by SpamGourmet. Some of them will have been sites I just stopped using, others may have been hacked, or sold my 'unique' address after I stopped being a customer/ user.

Thanks you everyone for the helpful and informative posts

I will check out spam gourmet and the other stuff suggested