Anybody who has a LinkedIn profile knows how often the site send emails. There are emails send for connection requests, emails sent when your connections have updates, emails for when your profile is being viewed, emails for when your connections accept your requests, and so many more. If you’re like me, you simply brush aside all of these emails because you can view all of that activity online the next time you actually sign into LinkedIn.
This past Friday afternoon, I received a new type of email that was sent out to all LinkedIn users–an email informing its users of a class-action suit. The email’s subject line was “LEGAL NOTICE OF SETTLEMENT OF CLASS ACTION” from a contact called “Legal Notice” (legalnotice@linkedin.com). In short, LinkedIn is dealing with improper use of one of their mechanisms to grow their user base, which is the “Add Connections” feature. The company is agreeing to pay out $13 million in compensation to users who felt that they had been wronged by this service. If enough users file for claims, LinkedIn will add another $750,000 to the fund (Murphy 2015).
The reasoning behind this class-action suit deals with a case called Perkins v. LinkedIn Corp. LinkedIn is being challenged based on its use of “Add Connections,” which is a LinkedIn service that connects current users’ email addresses to the site, and repeatedly asks the users if they would like to add those contacts to LinkedIn. If the users comply, an email will be sent to their contacts with a personalized invitation to join LinkedIn. What the LinkedIn users were unaware of, however, were how many emails LinkedIn was actually sending to their contacts. LinkedIn sends out three different emails to each contact–one initial email, and then two more “reminders” if the contact does not make a LinkedIn profile. “The lawsuit alleges that users did not consent to LinkedIn sending those additional emails, nor give LinkedIn permission to use their names and images in them” (Kastrenakes 2015). Any users who used the Add Connections feature between September 2011 and October 2014 are eligible to earn money by submitting a claim By December 2015 (Murphy 2015).
LinkedIn is dealing with this case very defensively. They released a statement to Business Insider on October 3rd, denying fault for the emails. They said:
LinkedIn recently settled a lawsuit concerning its Add Connections product. In the lawsuit, a number of false accusations were made against LinkedIn. Based on its review of LinkedIn’s product, the court agreed that these allegations were false and found that LinkedIn’s members gave permission to share their email contacts with LinkedIn and to send invitations to connect on LinkedIn. Because the court also suggested that we could be more clear about the fact that we send reminder emails about pending invitations from LinkedIn members, we have made changes to our product and privacy policy. Ultimately, we decided to resolve this case so that we can put our focus where it matters most: finding additional ways to improve our members’ experiences on LinkedIn. In doing so, we will continue to be guided by our core value — putting our members first (Kastrenakes 2015).
Is LinkedIn dealing with their allegations the right way? Some say no, because they feel that LinkedIn is trying too hard to draw users’ attention away from the case. For one, LinkedIn sent the email late on a Friday afternoon, which is the time of week when the emails are checked least frequently. This also draws media attention away from the matter, because readership on press outlets is lowest on Saturdays. Second, the subject line of the email looks like spam, because it is in all capital letters and the return contact is unknown by users. This would lead people to delete the email immediately, because they do not want to accidentally open a spam email. Third, LinkedIn did not provide any information about this case on their website or the users’ news feeds. Fourth, LinkedIn seems to be making it quite difficult for users to submit a claim. Not only are the directions in the email a bit misleading, but the prominent way to receive the money is by electronic bank transfer, and people may be hesitant to give LinkedIn their bank information (Goldman 2015).
This is not the first time that LinkedIn has denied wrongdoing for legal cases. In June 2012, 6.5 million American users’ passwords were stolen from LinkedIn and posted to a website hosted in Russia. Users argued that LinkedIn had not been properly protecting their legal information, which is what led to the suit being filed. “On the website, LinkedIn denied that it had done anything wrong and said the cash settlement was the best way to resolve the legal claims and would ‘avoid the distraction and expense of ongoing litigation'” (BBC 2015).
What do you think about how LinkedIn is handling Perkins v. LinkedIn Corp., and how do you think it will affect their site membership?
BBC. (24 Feb 2015). LinkedIn settles password hack legal claim. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31602894
Goldman, E. (3 Oct 2015). The Perkins v. LinkedIn Class Action Settlement Notification Was Badly Bungled. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2015/10/03/the-perkins-v-linkedin-class-action-settlement-notification-was-badly-bungled/
Kastrenakes, J. (2 Oct 2015). LinkedIn agrees to settle unwanted email lawsuit. The Verge. Retrieved from http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/2/9444067/linkedin-email-lawsuit-settlement-add-connections
Murphy, M. (4 Oct 2015). You might want to reply to that LinkedIn email you got Friday. Quartz. Retrieved from http://qz.com/516741/how-to-claim-linkedin-lawsuit-settlement-payment/
First I’d like to say I personally do not mind receiving the ‘reminder emails’ and the fact they used my name and image in ‘reminder emails’. I guess more people feel that way. Why is everyone making such a big deal out of it? I guess people want to get some money out of it.
As for LinkedIn, how they’re handling this situation: as a company I would have done the same thing. LinkedIn is indeed trying to draw the attention away, but they did actually send the email to their members and addressed the case. If the members were really concerned, they would know already via external media. Of course LinkedIn is making it difficult to make a claim, it’s a claim against their own. Again, if the members were truly worried and displeased, they will put more effort into suing the company.
The LinkedIn members, however, feel betrayed and might delete their account and tell their connections to do so too, because this is not the first time LinkedIn had to show up in court. As a result, the member base can diminish or stop growing so quickly.
I think what LinkedIn is doing now by sending out the emails is not wrong. They are probably forced to send out an email to their users about this, but these rules do not necessarily state a specific time of sending an email or showing notifications about it in LinkedIn itself. What you may question in this case is what feeling it creates for its users towards LinkedIn.
The examples given clearly show that LinkedIn is trying to avoid getting claims from its users. Because they are so focussed on keeping the amount of claims as small as possible, they seem to forget that the users are the ones that made LinkedIn to what it is nowadays. Without users LinkedIn would have no value. So from that perspective you may say that it might affect the users’ trust in a negative way.
On the other hand creating awareness for claims and making it easy to make a claim will also result in a lot of claims from people that are only trying to make money out of the situation. This group that doesn’t really care about receiving or sending these reminders or adding a name and picture in the email now have to put more effort in to make a claim, which will result in less claims from this group. The group that wants to make a more serious claim and that is not only claiming for the money, is probably willing to put more effort in so therefore the money that is being claimed will in the end go to this group.
So for both perspectives, LinkedIn’s and the users’ perspective, there are reasons why the current way of dealing with the situation is or is not the best way of dealing with the situation.