
I get enough nagging from LinkedIn as it is
and I don't actually have an account
Social-network-for-biz-types LinkedIn has begun offering a Facebook-like feature that notifies a user when another member connected to their network views that person's profile, accepts an invitation or carries out other creepy stalking habits as is de rigueur in the Web2.0 world. The company said in a blog post that LinkedIn …
Oh, what? That place? Didn't it used to be "Friends Reunited"?
I get Linkedin invites sometimes but otherwise only go near it when I'm bored or need to add a new skill - "cat wrangling" is the most recent... It's another site that doesn't really work that well without Javascript so I spend very little time there.
I have personal experience of this. The way it works is this way...
1. Company hires "recruitment" agencies.
2. These agencies pose as "recruitment agencies" and advertise jobs (the job could be real or fake it does not matter)
3. The recruitment agency invites employees, from the company that hired it, to join their network.
4. Thats it! Now the recruitment agency gets all the activity details of the company's employees i.e. who else they are connecting with, what changes the employees have made to their profile, what comment they have made etc.
5. The recruitment agency then reports these details back to the company.
I may sound fiction, but this actually happened to me. I blacklisted lot of recruitment agencies who were involved in this activity. The recruitment agencies are one of the well known in UK and the company that is using this method to spy on its employees is one of the leaders in its field! Shameful, but true!