Viva la revolución: LinkedIn profile visitor lists belong to the people, says Noyb

A LinkedIn feature the average non-paying user likely only glances past could end up setting a legal precedent in the EU regarding how companies treat customer data that they've processed.  Take a look at your LinkedIn profile, if you have one, and you'll see a space where you can look at profile viewers. For premium LinkedIn …

[mickaroo]

When The Service Is Free...

...you are the service.

When the service is 'Premium' you're PAYING to be the service.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd actually forgotten I deleted my linkedin account a year or two ago. No loss whatsoever.

[Neil Barnes]

I created a Linkedin account when I was made redundant fifteen years ago at the behest of the group assigned to help us find new jobs. I never used it; I deleted it the day MS bought it.

I worked fifteen years since then...

[Caver_Dave]

Many years ago, I had a job advert written by a prospective employer using my CV as a template (as I was the singular preferred candidate, well know to numerous employees of that company through my STEM Ambassador voluntary role.)

I obviously sent in my CV to the company owner when the job was posted and followed up with a call a week later as I had heard nothing from him. His answer was that he had binned my application as I had no social media presence that he could find. Although I believe that I escaped a bullet, if he really was so shallow, I did set up a LinkedIn profile soon after.

I get the emails to say that my profile has been looked at by 50+ people per week, but I will not pay to see who is being nosey!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how useful that feature is anyway. I have a LinkedIn account with like two jobs from a decade ago and no pfp, and I go on there once a year and just click on profiles in my area for no real reason. I'm sure I'm an outlier, but profile views != interest whatsoever. I don't know how the site works in the slightest, but whenever I get on there they make it seem like my profile is so popular it's breaking their site, but the only contacts I get are from companies being like "we'd love you to sell cut-co knives," or "we love your experience in the IT field, would you be interested in driving a bus?"

Seems like a totally useless site to me.

[Sp1z]

I deleted my account years ago when they got hacked and spewed my email address everywhere. They of course denied it profusely, but seeing as it was linkedin@my domain they didn’t understand that I had proof. They ended up ignoring me, so I vowed never to have anything to do with the cesspool ever again.

Anyway it just seems like coke-fuelled egotistical twats posting AI generated slop from what I can tell, so no major loss.

[Anonymous Coward]

I created a totally fake one and got link requests :)

[IGotOut]

Ahh LinkedIn

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. "

[Alien Doctor 1.1]

Re: Ahh LinkedIn

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. "

Aside from every other antisocial media site.

[KittenHuffer]

Re: Ahh LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the worst form of (Anti)Social Media except for all others which have been tried from time to time!

I believe that is the quote you were looking to bastardise!

[DrewPH]

Why use LinkedIn when /r/linkedinlunatics is way more entertaining?

[Bebu sa Ware]

linkedinlunatics

Thanks. I had never stumbled over linkedinlunatics.

Cannot say there is a lot of to distinguish the two. I had a bollocks linkedin account for a year or so just to follow the circus antics at a previous employer. I was surprised by the amount of unrelated crap that account attracted. I didn't imagine a social media trainer and career donkey botherer would attract the recruitment scum but there you go.

Once the circus quietened into silent dispair the world's donkeys were left unbothered and the linkedin account tossed.

If the cesspit of Linkedin were an actual lake of shit, the environmental disaster would have ensured its closure years ago.

[doublelayer]

What data is my data?

I think the only argument LinkedIn can try to use, and I'm not sure if it would work, is arguing that your data is all the stuff you chose to put on LinkedIn, knowing it would be public, not actions from others which would count as data of the person conducting the action. That could let them argue that the thing they're selling is access to partial data from someone else, rather than your data. Either way, it leads to a tricky definitional question about what data counts as personal data of a certain person for the purposes of GDPR, a question that can be much more important than whether LinkedIn has to provide that premium feature for free. For example, LinkedIn already provides that data to some people, but what happens with sites that don't provide history to anyone but do know that information? Would they also be required to provide a list of viewers, which could be invasive for anyone who thought they were reading something public?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What data is my data?

Would they also be required to provide a list of viewers, which could be invasive for anyone who thought they were reading something public?

It depends. The this company have to buy the list with the viewers' name and ip address from your ISP, or did the viewer sign into their service and provide it to them when asked? Or does that distinction not exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What data is my data?

Came to comments to make the same point - Microsoft could convincingly argue that the list of people who viewed your profile is the data of THOSE people, not data about you, and therefore they're not required to hand it over for free.

Realistically, it's kinda both - the viewer took the action (so it's their data), but it's a connection to the profile (so it's the profile owner's data too).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What data is my data?

Same. What's being sold seems to be more someone else's browsing history, at minimum. If we accept the argument that said browsing history is also the data of the person whose profile was viewed, then how do we classify data which belongs simultaneously to multiple unrelated users? Do both have an access right to what's "theirs" or do we read more expansively towards prohibiting access to others' data absent some clear exception?

Honestly, the existing rules don't do a very good job providing clarity in a situation which probably wasn't anticipated by the drafters.

[I could be a dog really]

Re: What data is my data?

If they argue that the data belongs to those who viewed your profile, then they can't hand it over free or for a charge without the consent of those looking. That consent would be somewhere in the T&Cs so probably not an issue. However, the consent question is the same whether free or paid for - so it would be an idiot who tried to use that argument in court.

[doublelayer]

Re: What data is my data?

I'll need to see your work on that. Why would that be a stupid argument in court? If they can successfully argue that the visit is the data of the visitor, not the visitee, they are off the hook. LinkedIn, like every other company, is required to provide me my data for free on request, not others', so if they get the visit information classified as others', then they can choose to withhold it unless I pay them. The consent issue doesn't matter to this argument, though theoretically people could take issue with whether it's clear enough for the GDPR's purposes. Either way, that's a different case and a different request.

[Anonymous Coward]

"12 people found you though the homepage,"

If that is a direct quote, please leave it in because its funny, although a [SIC] would be appropriate. If you need help with cut-and-paste, they are CTRL-C and CTRL-V respectively. Or you can do what I do and blame accountants at keyboard manufacturers or my minor chainsaw accident two weeks into my typing class which I failed to pass.

[abend0c4]

A precedent would be welcomed

The degree of welcome might depend on the nature of the decision.

[WSWS]

The EU at it again. Who says that the list of who viewed your profile is *your* data? I think that the data point of when I viewed your profile is *my* data, should I now complain about the GDPR violation of them handing out my data without my permission? Realistically, all the infrastructure involved belongs to LinkedIn, so it is *their* data, to sell to you if they want. We're not talking about them selling your private life here. As usual, even when the EU has an idea that is good in principle, they managed to fuck up the application, and GDPR is absolutely one of those cases.

[I could be a dog really]

Are you from the USA by any chance ? You show a very USAian view of GDPR.

You could have an argument that it's your information as to whether you viewed someone else's profile. The counter to that is that LinkedIn can share that provided they have your consent and act in accordance with the uses they stated when obtaining that consent. It would be valid to say in the T&Cs that if you view another user's profile, then LinkedIn will record that, and that you give them consent to share your identity with the person who's profile you viewed. You did read the full T&Cs didn't you ?

While there are many things the EU have "not got right" (partly why I was one of those who voted to leave), GDPR is absolutely not one of them. GDPR is not a barrier to doing business, it is only a barrier to those who built a business model on riding roughshod over any concept of personal privacy by slurping personal information by any means possible and processing that to build a detailed profile on people that probably exceeds their own understanding of themselves. That the anti-social media companies squeal so loud about how bad GDPR is should be an indication that it's actually "a good idea." Oh, and it's a barrier to those who just c.b.a. to follow basic laws - and again, if a business squeals about GDPR compliance being a big problem, that tells you more about their morality than it does about GDPR.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I know why it went cra*

"LinkedIn owner Microsoft"