
Today I Deleted My LinkedIn Account; You Probably Should Too - mbildner
http://moshebildner.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/today-i-delete-my-linkedin-account-you-probably-should-too/
======
birken
I find linkedin is the most useful social network I'm a part of, even though I
rarely visit it. I have made many professional connections, and linkedin
aggregates them nicely and I find the periodic emails of people getting new
jobs or new titles to be very interesting. I guess I am not as annoyed about
the shady tactics as you are, I just ignore them.

So I'm sorry that you don't like the site, but I politely decline your
recommendation to delete my account.

~~~
objclxt
Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn.

I don't like the site, and I don't like the company. _That said_ , I've had
on-site interviews at Google, Facebook, and the like _not_ via my
StackOverflow profile (which is pretty good, 20k+), _or_ my blog, but directly
through being hit up on LinkedIn.

I'm about to start a dream job next week, again after being contacted first on
LinkedIn by my new employer.

Perhaps it's alright if you can post online about all the great work you do,
or you have a name for yourself in the industry, or you make lots of OSS
contributions on GitHub. Unfortunately I don't have any of those (yet!). But I
do have a LinkedIn profile, and that's what got me on the one-way flight from
London to SF next week.

I'm not defending LinkedIn as a company: I think they're pretty scummy. But if
I didn't have my account, maybe I wouldn't have got this job.

~~~
ffrryuu
At this point, it's as if a lot of company have stopped accepting applicants
except via LinkedIn. They find you, instead of you find them.

~~~
ryguytilidie
Recruiter here. Would you rather have an inbox with 2000 unqualified resumes
or just go find qualified people yourself?

~~~
fredoliveira
It would be interesting to hear first hand what your process looks like, and
why you might find Linkedin to be a better fit as opposed to something like SO
(which obviously I'm not sure you do).

~~~
jvoorhis
The parent wasn't apologizing for LinkedIn so much as advocating for an active
recruiting strategy rather than a passive one. If I were a recruiter
mercenary, I'd look use both.

------
niuzeta
> A quick scan of my Google account reveals that I have granted access to 49
> different websites. AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MOST OF THEM ARE, OR WHAT
> PERMISSIONS I GAVE THEM.

Okay, at the risk of sounding arrogant, _you have no rights to complain if you
give out permission to 50 different websites without knowing what they do._
You cannot complain that you are being exploited, when you allow yourself to
be exploited. My google account is linked to fifteen different sites which I
know what they are all for.

> go check your inbox for an “Invitation to connect on LinkedIn”. They don’t
> come from _@linkedin.com, which THEY ABSOLUTELY SHOULD

Again, _you gave them the permission to do so _. And to play the devil 's
advocate, would you be _less* likely to accept an invitation from your friend
if he sent you an e-mail from some foreign account, or his account of which
you are familiar? Again, you gave them the permission. If you don't like it,
just make a linkedIn account without a connection to Google account. You've
not done so because connecting to Google is _convenient_. You are paying a
fair price.

I get minimal number of e-mails from linkedIn because I didn't give them
permission to send me every gritty details of other people. It does exactly
what I told it to. Maybe you should as well.

~~~
pstack
Agreed. This is promiscuous behavior. One should occasionally check out their
Google dashboard and see what's going on. A few times a year, I check out what
has permission via my Google account and deactivate anything that I haven't
used in awhile or no longer care about.

------
donretag
"Seriously, go check your inbox for an “Invitation to connect on LinkedIn”.
They don’t come from *@linkedin.com, which THEY ABSOLUTELY SHOULD."

Not true. I just checked the headers on a recent email and LinkedIn is
definitely setting the From correctly:

From: [redacted] via LinkedIn <member@linkedin.com>

The Reply-To is the one of the user however.

~~~
Karunamon
Yup, so not only is this article preachy and boring (seriously, how many "I'm
quitting $socialnetwork and you should too" posts do we need?), but it's also
factually wrong.

Even if the from address was that of the user who sent the message, it's kind
of hard to ignore the huge LinkedIn branding the message resides in. You'd
have to be a fool to miss it, because I'm pretty sure even a blind person's
screen reader would pick up on this.

~~~
sp332
It's not about fooling the human, it's about giving the spam filter a hard
time.

~~~
snowwrestler
LinkedIn emails get through spam filters because they have properly configured
email auth like SPF and DKIM, LinkedIn accounts are double-opt-in, and because
LinkedIn works closely with major email providers like Google and Microsoft.

~~~
sp332
I feel like there should be a button for people who don't have accounts to
say, "I don't want to make an account _and_ I don't want any more email from
LinkedIn."

~~~
pjbrunet
Would be nice if Gmail's "Spam" button actually blocked future emails from
that same person indefinitely!

Sometimes they get around filters by sending from different emails, that's
really annoying. I should probably quit Gmail and go back to Cerberus which
has awesome filtering!

------
diminoten
Wait, why should I delete mine too? Because their business model is, in the
author's opinion, unsustainable? Because of the fact that the _author_ gets
spam from them (I have gmail filters set up such that I am not aware of any
mail LinkedIn sends me)?

This smells like just another hipster anti-culture movement. "LinkedIn is
popular, down with LinkedIn!"

~~~
phy6
I could not agree more. I'm getting real tired of seeing sensationalist
platitudes on HN. Next up: 'Why I stopped going to the bathroom'. It's fine to
buck the trends, it's a bit awkward to try and make other people taste your
sour grapes.

------
Aloisius
I get basically no LinkedIn mail and haven't for about a year. The settings
are pretty easy to change [1][2][3] (though there are a lot of them) and they
don't seem to roll out new settings and default them to on like Facebook used
to.

Occasionally I log in and check my messages and update my profile, especially
when I need to look someone up or figure out how to get an introduction to
someone, but generally I find LinkedIn to be pretty unobtrusive. I'm not sure
lack of using it constantly is really a good rationale for closing an account
though. Seems a bit short-sighted based on the value of having your second
degree network so easily identifiable.

[1] [https://www.linkedin.com/settings/email-
frequency?goback=.na...](https://www.linkedin.com/settings/email-
frequency?goback=.nas_*1_*1_*1)

[2] [https://www.linkedin.com/settings/partner-
inmail?goback=%2En...](https://www.linkedin.com/settings/partner-
inmail?goback=%2Enas_*1_*1_*1)

[3] [https://www.linkedin.com/settings/research-
invitations?gobac...](https://www.linkedin.com/settings/research-
invitations?goback=%2Enas_*1_*1_*1)

~~~
justincormack
They have defaulted new emails to on in the past.

------
smtddr
Well, to each their own. LinkedIn has added great value to me. My current job
was because a recruiter found me on it. After researching the company, I knew
I'd love it there. But, I babysit my LinkedIn account like other people tend
to their Facebook. I comment on articles, posts updates, keep my profile up-
to-date, share random things I find interesting. I do this _daily_ , which is
what I see people around me doing with Facebook.

~~~
pjbrunet
Same here but I find few people comment on the articles or get involved in the
comments. Seems that's one area where Google Plus is winning.

------
ypeterholmes
Don't see much here. For many people LinkedIn is a good way to connect with
other professionals, and you can always change your email settings. I'll need
a better reason to delete it. This article just seems like someone who never
saw the value in something deciding to get rid of it.

------
civilian
I don't use LinkedIn like I use facebook. With facebook I'm checking in on
friends. With LinkedIn I occasionally add professional contacts, and just
maintain an update profile so that recruiters can search for me.

The cracking-open-your-email that LinkedIn does, however, is really
aggravating. I've never let linkedin access my email account to search for
contacts.

------
voxmatt
Although I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with LinkedIn, I think this
article is a little off; as many point out, it's fairly easy to set email
preferences on LinkedIn.

This article was useful, however, as it reminded me that I've been meaning to
delete my Path account. That I did delete today.

------
yesimahuman
I deleted mine a few weeks back. I was getting negative value of it in the
form of spam and random connections I didn't actually know in person.

In the developer world, LinkedIn is seen as marginal at best, and uncool at
worst. Other industries? I don't know. I had someone tell me they get a lot of
B2B value out of it in the bio med space.

At any rate, I don't miss it for a second. I had to create a quick test
account for a portal I was using and the signup process was just awfully
deceptive. I deleted that one as well.

------
rogueSkib
LinkedIn also sets some very annoying traps for its users.

A few days ago, I received an email from LinkedIn displaying an old friend who
wanted to connect. I was excited to see an old familiar face, so I logged in
and eventually found a way to connect with him. Today, I received an email
again for the same person, saying my invitation to connect was still standing.
I clicked through the links in the email this time, and was walked through a
multi-step tutorial, that tricked me into sending 16 invites to random people
I have never met before. They had a list of potential connections, only one of
which I wanted to make, so I took the time to uncheck all the other boxes
beside strangers. When I hit their continue button, it told me I had sent 16
invitations ... apparently the list I had just seen was actually scrollable,
but by design, it was very difficult to tell that there were 16 hidden users I
had to scroll down to see. Very frustrating.

------
mindcrime
OK, great, you don't find LinkedIn useful. I respect that, but I do not at all
_understand_ it. LinkedIn is about 100x more _useful_ than Facebook in my
life, even if I spend more raw time on Facebook (and I'm not 100% sure that's
true, actually).

I guess it depends on how you use LinkedIn, but for me, it's a marketing &
promotion channel (via LI groups mainly), a constantly updated Rolodex, an
expertise locator, and a source of information for market research,
competitive intelligence and general industry awareness.

Now, to be fair, I am a startup founder, where said startup is in the B2B
space. Maybe that makes LinkedIn uniquely useful for me, compared to other
folks who aren't in this position. I don't know, I just know that LinkedIn is
wildly useful for me. _shrug_

------
eliben
I did, a while ago. Nothing useful came out of Linkedin for me, but tons and
tons of spam. It took me months to get unsubscribed from all the spam.

------
busterarm
So glad that I've _never_ had one. They sketched me out right from the
beginning.

------
kvcrawford
Build a webapp for users to generate nice-looking, highly usable resumes. Host
their resumes on public profile pages, maintaining complete openness (with an
optional permissions model, of course). Offer a "Download Resume as PDF"
option, so users can download their resume for emailing as an attachment. Let
them own their data.

Create such an awesome experience, that everyone is compelled to use it.
Absolutely no paywalls for individual users.

Design an awesome interface for companies to search through resumes. Implement
algorithms for automated job-matching. Monetize on subscriptions to this, and
on job postings, a la StackOverflow Careers.

Watch LinkedIn crumble.

------
phy6
I'll delete my LinkedIn profile after I'm sure that I'll never want employment
anywhere. This is essentially professional reputation/resume service, which
eliminated my use of a half dozen job websites.

------
sp332
According to [http://justdelete.me/](http://justdelete.me/) LinkedIn has been
reported to send you emails even after you delete your account. I know one
woman who kept getting invitation emails from another guy, even though he
wasn't active on the site at all. She was so annoyed that (with her
permission) I added her email address to my account so it would stop bugging
her.

~~~
Zikes
Wouldn't that run afoul of the CAN-SPAM act?

~~~
sp332
Since the emails were supposedly sent at the behest of a user, I don't think
it counts as unsolicited email.

~~~
Zikes
CAN-SPAM requires an option to unsubscribe, though.

~~~
sp332
It's not like Gmail adds a link to unsubscribe from all Gmail users' emails.
If a user sends a message, LinkedIn can deliver it without falling afoul of
CAN-SPAM.

~~~
arjie
That sounds broken. If I want to spam someone, I just need to set up a website
that allows you to message users and then register for it myself and keep
requesting to send messages. That sounds like the sort of obvious loophole you
catch early on.

~~~
sp332
You would have to go after the user for spamming you, not the email service
that delivers the message.

------
salehenrahman
I'm currently working at a job, where a recruiter reached out to me via
LinkedIn.

I'm glad I'm still a loyal LinkedIn user.

Regardless, I wish you best of luck.

------
krapp
I actually find Linkedin useful. I like being part of a social network whose
focus is professionals. If only they weren't so smarmy. I used to be able to
link my Behance.net portfolio and github there but I can't even see those apps
anymore. It's sad, but I still go in and check my groups every day.

I'll definitely sign up with whoever can do it better.

------
chuckd1356
The ability to shut off emails has been pretty easy, in my experience. Other
than that, I find quite a bit of value from linkedin.

------
liveinoakland
If you are in a service industry (consulting, law, etc.), sales, or other
business role, LinkedIn is absolutely critical for qualifying leads, being
qualified, and networking. If you are a line-engineer, sure, you probably can
delete it.

~~~
ffrryuu
LinkedIn is essential for everyone, it's how you get the great jobs, versus
say any job.

------
cpncrunch
Yep, I was thinking exactly the same thing a couple of weeks ago. What annoys
me more is the constant money grabbing - things like asking me to pay to view
some people's profiles, asking me to pay to see who viewed my profile, etc.
linkedin has provided me with zero value over the years.

Anyway, I'm so pissed off at linkedin that I've spent the last couple of weeks
developing my own lightweight, less evil alternative. Once it's complete I'm
just going to update my linked profile to say something like 'see my full
profile on ...'. If other people find it useful then they can use it too.

------
monkeynotes
> Google is the holder of your information and manager of your identity

I don't agree with this. Google may be the locker in which you put your
information, but you hold the key to it. If you decide to give the key to 3rd
parties that's your responsibility.

People need to educate themselves about how their information can be used and
abused. Perhaps someone needs to drive this education and perhaps Google
can/should be a part of that, but they are in no way implicitly obliged.

If you write your password down on a post-it and stick it to your computer
screen, is that Google's responsibility?

------
hawkharris
LinkedIn would be three times as useful if it changed a single line of code.

Instead of giving users the default "I'd like to add you to my professional
network" placeholder text, LinkedIn should require users to explain how and
why they want to connect with other professionals.

Would this make it a bit harder to grow your network? Yes, but that's not
necessarily a bad thing. It would put quality over quantity, making your
connections more meaningful and requiring users to stop and think before
sending someone a connect request (therefore cutting down on email spam).

------
snowwrestler
Sending emails "from" your Gmail address has nothing to do with granting
application access to your Gmail account.

The former is basic spoofing; the same thing spammers do to make it look like
"you" sent that C!alis email. Any mail server can put whatever they want in
email fields, no special access required.

The latter means that LinkedIn can actually harvest your list of contacts in
Gmail for marketing. Way worse IMO and I encourage people to be very careful
about what apps they authorize into their personal accounts like Google.

------
stevetursi
I can't quit you, LinkedIn.

On one hand, I hate it for all the reasons everyone has already mentioned.

On the other, I wouldn't have my current job (which I love) if not for
LinkedIn. And since that job has paid me something in the neighborhood of a
quarter-million dollars over the last several years, that makes LinkedIn about
a quarter-million dollars more valuable to me than all other social networks
put together.

I can't quit you, LinkedIn.

------
chatman
Articles like these dilute the seriousness of some of the other legit posts on
why one should quit some other sites, e.g. Facebook.

------
untog
I haven't gone to the extent of deleting my account, but I have removed my
entire work history and all details except a "contact me via another medium"
message. I suppose it is at least a placeholder to stop anyone trying to
impersonate me.

But I have missed exactly zero content of worth. All I ever got were endless
spammy e-mails from recruiters.

------
ChrisAntaki
>> A quick scan of my Google account reveals that I have granted access to 49
different websites. AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MOST OF THEM ARE, OR WHAT
PERMISSIONS I GAVE THEM.

It really pays to observe what permissions are being asked for. When a
flashlight app asks for your GPS, and network communication, you know
something's amiss.

~~~
sp332
Or it just wants to show ads.

------
stekoz
Ironically, yesterday I deleted my Linkedin account, just because it is
totally useless for me and for 101% of those in my circles (or network or how
you want to call it), except for a sense of doing the right thing and being
professional in their social networking.

Not to mention their dubious approach to password management, of course.

------
NovemberWest
On skimming, the piece does not appear to provide any technical how to info
nor does it indicate what it really means for the account to be officially
closed. Can one really delete a LinkedIn account? I vaguely had the impression
you could not really truly get rid of it.

------
nikolakirev
While deleting your account is certainly one of the options, I disabled all
email notifications and removed all the recruiters that added me. Now I am
careful about which requests I approve. Overall, LikedIn can be useful for
connecting to new colleagues or former ones.

------
TallboyOne
So I should delete my LinkedIn because YOU don't like it?

Uh... ok....let me get right on that

------
benmorris
LinkedIn has been a great way for me to build clients and put myself out
there. I routinely get inquiries from my portfolio. I just recently landed a
new client through LinkedIn. I'll keep it for now.

------
uladzislau
I'm afraid after you signed up for LinkedIn there's no way to completely
remove your data. It might be a good idea to limit the information on your
profile and keep it dormant.

------
lylemckeany
I use unroll.me and that way I only see one daily digest of my LinkedIn emails
and any other spammy things I signed up for at some point for some reason
unbeknownst to me now.

------
baddox
I managed to delete my account about a year ago, on my second attempt. That
was after two unsuccessful attempts to unsubscribe from _literally all_ emails
from them.

~~~
alfiejohn_
Before deleting my account, I unsubscribed from several groups. Yet two weeks
later I was still getting daily updates from the unsubscribed groups. Also,
even though I had unsubscribed and they were not on my group list, they still
showed up on my public profile. After two support tickets, the emails stopped.

Then I decided that LinkedIn was useless to me so I deleted my account. For
two weeks, I still continued to get daily email updates even though I no
longer had an account. After another support ticket, the emails stopped.

------
skrebbel
If you tell other people what they should do, at least have the decency of
writing a READABLE ARTICLE.

All I get from this is "author is angry".

------
stefap2
i am pondering opening linkedin account. the idea of networking and possible
job prospects are intriguing, but displaying my profile publicly creeps me
out. also it seems better fitted for people with a straight career path. when
applying for jobs i tend to target job postings with each resume, not sure how
would that work with linkedin.

~~~
pjbrunet
You can customize what's displayed on the public profile, section by section.

------
ffrryuu
You are a nobody without a LinkedIn account.

------
periferral
so if I'm reading this correct, he hates linked in because they spam him with
email? Gosh, its my resume. And recruiters call me. And I have all my
recommendations in one place. sorry, but I'd like to hold on to my account if
you dont mind.

------
magicmarkker
I did this like 2 months ago and it's been really great.

------
zeckalpha
I deleted it when they had the password leak last year.

------
aitkin
As I was reading this article I received an email from a recruiter on
LinkedIn...

------
bengrunfeld
I checked my inbox. Every email from LinkedIn is 'member@linkedin.com' or some
variation. It was kind of hard to believe the rest after that.

------
mswe
Closed too. #Hate #Linkedin

~~~
stefantalpalaru
#not #twitter

------
cowboy_coder
LinkedIn is ripe for disruption. A great idea for a start-up but without LEO.

------
mbildner
A bunch of people have (correctly, I think) pointed out that more recent
LinkedIn emails come from them directly. I have seen emails as recent as 2012
sent from user addresses:
[http://imgur.com/gallery/fapPDhZ/new](http://imgur.com/gallery/fapPDhZ/new)
(sorry for the manic smudging).

Anyhow, assuming these are anomalous, and that LinkedIn has generally moved to
sending emails properly, I still stand by my decision to close down my
account. I haven't gotten anything useful out of it and I have been
consistently annoyed by it. Not devastating, but like I said, annoying. If you
use it and love it then great! I hope LinkedIn keeps on improving and
becomes/stays (your option) a great company. But if you're not getting
anything out of it, then I think it would behoove you to think twice about why
you maintain the account, and if it's nothing but annoying then at least
consider getting rid of it.

~~~
pbreit
That's probably just a narrow situation where the sender knows your email
address and is sending a message from within LinkedIn. It's not that LinkedIn
has modified its email sending behavior in the past year or 2. I am sure you
can confirm for us that the dozens or 100s of other emails you have received
"from" LinkedIn are actually being send "From:" LinkedIn?

