LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional social network, has been sued by customers who allege that it hacked their email accounts and downloaded contacts illegally. The customers aim to lead a group suit against LinkedIn, they’ve asked a federal judge in San Jose, California to stop LinkedIn from repeating any such practise and also return any revenue that it might have made by using their identities in order to promote its own website to non-members. Speaking to Bloomberg, Doug Madey, a spokesman for LinkedIn said that the company believes this lawsuit is without merit, they’re ready to fight back vigorously.
The allegation here is that LinkedIn is accessing users’ email accounts and downloading their contacts, it is then sending multiple emails to non-members about its products and services. The plaintiffs allege that “LinkedIn’s appropriation of email addresses to send multiple reminder emails promoting its service is motivated by monetary gain. Plaintiffs are pushing for a jury trial. LinkedIn calls itself the largest online professional network with over 238 million members, it also claims to tout executives from every Fortune 500 company. The company’s spokesman says that it is committed to putting its members first, and that this entails “being transparent about how we protect and utilize our members’ data.”
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