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08/12/2011 Authored by: Jeremy Spurr
Changes to LinkedIn Advertising and Your Privacy
This week, LinkedIn opted in most of its 100 million users to share their private information across new social advertisements. This privacy change with social advertising was quietly announced via a blog post. 2 days later, they suspended this advertising scheme after user backlash and threats of closing accounts.
What is social advertising?
You may have seen social advertising on Facebook. If your friend likes a Facebook page or application, you will sometimes see a message in the right hand sidebar. This is different than messages in the normal news feed. A company is paying for that message to be there. For most users, it does not look like an ad, but it is a form of social advertising.
There were to be 2 forms of social advertising on LinkedIn:
- Recruitment Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
If opted in, your participation in these ads are not limited to people in your network. Uh oh.
Should you opt out of social advertising?
Although this social advertising is in hiatus, you can still opt out of this if it becomes available at a future date. I only want my connections to have access to my information, including my photo and the companies I follow. So, I chose to opt out of social advertising, by taking the four steps below:
- Hover over your name in the top right hand corner of any LinkedIn page and click “Settings”.
- On the Settings page, click “Account”.
- On the Account tab, click “Manage Social Advertising”.
- Uncheck the box next to “LinkedIn may use my name, photo in social advertising.” and click the “Save” button.
If you want the most exposure you can get, than the default settings are right for you.
The Shame Game
LinkedIn wasn’t the first to make such a gaffe. Over the years, Facebook has made some privacy blunders, including the following:
- Nov. 2007 – Facebook launches the Beacon advertising platform, which automatically updated user’s profiles with their purchases and advertisers’ information.
- Feb. 2009 – In addition to launching the Like button, Facebook changes its Terms of Services in a way that appeared to give Facebook ownership of users’ content.
- Feb. 2011 – Facebook user profile info scraped and stolen by a dating website.
Given the precedence of public backlash against Facebook changes, LinkedIn should have known to notify users before the change.
The Lesson
Users expect transparency in and from their social networks. Facebook now lets users review, comment and vote on new principles and privacies. LinkedIn should try a similar approach. Instead of sending me daily e-mails regarding my LinkedIn connections, they should e-mail me when they plan to share my information or content differently.
Even though we expect the best of our favorite websites, users need to be proactive. Now’s the time to log in to all of your social networks and check your account and privacy settings. You should do this every month. You should also monitor social media articles on Mashable.com and subscribe to the Envision blog for any important updates!
Relevant Links
Privacy Policy Links:
- http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=privacy_policy
- http://www.facebook.com/policy.php
- http://twitter.com/privacy
- http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy_at_youtube
Account Privacy Settings:
- https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?trk=hb_acc
- http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy
- http://twitter.com/settings/account
- http://www.youtube.com/account_privacy
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