I have a friend by this name, but this is not him.
Though I use my email account to log into LinkedIn, I did not give it permission to browse my contacts and try to link me to them. I prefer to control my connections manually.
A few weeks ago during my monthly "log on to LinkedIn and see who requested a connection" session, after accepting the few invites I had, I looked at the next section which is a list of suggestions who I might want to invite. Normally this list is comprised of people who are connected to other people I am connected to, or maybe people who I have worked with in the past. Some kind of algorithm spits out who they think I should know.
And that's when this name caught my eye. I know a guy by this name, but this is not him. Now granted, there is a little "3rd" over on the right side, so perhaps this is just a coincidence, but I still smell a rat. I feel like somehow LinkedIn has poked their nose in my contacts.
I think I'm being paranoid. Anyone have some tin foil I can borrow?
This one creeped me out when I discovered it the other day. Go to facebook. Click ACTIVITY LOG. Click "HIDDEN" from the dropdown in the upper right. Creepy. Everyone I've searched for. I feel creepy looking at it and it's my searches!
You do know that a poorly constructed tin foil hat only helps them find you right? (Or even cooks your brain if microwaves are in play) But seriously, I'll have to agree with thenewgreen. If his name is slightly common, then something called "The law of large numbers" is probably at work here. Otherwise you are allowed to freak out :P
I still think that the tin foil hat is a plot of the zombies to precook the brains they want to consume later on.
I know that some people do benefit from the business contacts that they make through LinkedIn, but I feel like most maintain account 'just in case'. A couple of years ago after realizing that LinkedIn really didn't matter in my field, I deleted my account. I doubt they browsed your contacts without permission. But I wouldn't put a large sum of money on it. The again, maybe they scrape your public info, or buy it.
Also, your "just in case" scenario is right on the money. I update my resume there about every 6 months. Otherwise, I may forget to. If you spend 5 or more years at a company and then all of a sudden are back on the market for a job, it may be difficult to recount all of your accomplishments over those 5 years. If you update your LinkedIn account regularly, you will be prepared for such things.
khaaan, About 4 years ago I hated my job. I sold food to restaurants for a company that pressured me daily to develop tight bonds with customers and then charge as much money as I could for products. I was good at it, but I HATED it. Loathed it. One of my friends told me to create a LinkedIn account and post my resume there. I did. About 3 months later I had all but forgotten about the LinkedIn account, when all of a sudden a recruiter contacted me. He had seen my resume on LinkedIn. I actually think LinkedIn is a great idea and can work well for people in the professional world to network. It is NOT a social site, it's a professional site. That said, I have had a number of people from High School try to "connect" on linked in and their job title is "domestic engineer" or "bible study teacher". While both may be interesting pursuits and perhaps even important, depending on your stance, they're not appropriate for LinkedIn. What I've seen of late is the Facebook-i-fication of LinkedIn. I love my current job and I would have never found it without LinkedIn, an ambitious sales recruiter and about 4 interviews.... but it all started with LinkedIn.
I think you are being paranoid if you refused the permission level settings when the linked-in facebook app connection screen came up. But watch out for selective memory; don't rule out the possibility that you gave permission. Also possible that you didn't think you were giving permission, but were, because the facebook connect privacy options are needlessly (intentionally, IMHO) obfuscated. I'm just postulating of course, no idea or accusations regarding you did. But it's heavily in FB's best interest to respect the privacy settings they offer, particularly with regard to 3rd parties. Their stock is still suffering, they have earned a very bad public image as untrustworthy, and I predict legislation targeting them is almost certainly coming down the line. Even anti-trust action against them isn't that outlandish in a few years assuming they continue to integrate more and more of the population and integrate their 3rd party services more and more. FB connect is on a fast course to be the primary authentication method of the internet, at least in the United States. IANAL, but I doubt being shady with this information would result in anything more serious than a class action suite. But the stakes are too high for them to want to risk that intentionally. All of their privacy screw ups have been due to incompetence. And LinkedIn is a big competitor for them! It is in a different niche, but it's still a place people can go and do social networking other than FB. Less eyeball time on FB is less ad revenue. So yeah. Put the tinfoil back in the drawer my man. :)
I'll put it this way - he is the only person I know personally with the last name, although I know of a few people who also have the name. One of them is famous, so it skews it a bit. Let's say it's like the last name Osmond. Everyone has heard it because of Donny and Marie. And you may have met a person with the last name, but it's not common (even though it sounds familiar because of the famous one)
I know Steve, I was just trying to give you a hard time because I found it funny that you wanted to protect the anonymity but at the same time posting so much information about that person. One google search away from knowing everything about this dude. Weird.
If his name is Chris Dombrowsnitcher or something crazy like that then you're not being paranoid. Chris Johnson = paranoid.