The first article by Michael Zhang and Feng Zhu looked at the causal relationship between group size and incentives to contribute to public goods, namely digital goods. They did a study based on Chinese Wikipedia and how the blocking efforts from mainland China affected the number of contributions to the site. Chinese Wikipedia’s community is composed of Chinese speakers around the world, with the majority of the community from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. In October 2005, when mainland China blocked Chinese Wikipedia from its citizens for about a year, non-blocked contributors of Chinese Wikipedia decreased their contributions by 42.8% on average. Thus, the authors concluded that there is a positive relationship between group size and contribution levels. In contrast to the free-rider hypothesis, contributors to public goods such as Wikipedia oftentimes receive private benefits because of social effects (Zhang & Zhu, 2011).

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/