It recently came to my attention that LinkedIn has a setting activated by default allowing it to “use my name, photo in social advertising.” Below is a screenshot of this setting in my LinkedIn profile.
First, I should state I understand this is a means of increasing social engagement and connection-making within LinkedIn. What I find problematic is LinkedIn’s flagrant disregard for our privacy by making such a setting default. If you feel the same way, here are the steps to disable this feature in your LinkedIn account, provided in graphical form:
LinkedIn Privacy Step 1: Under your name in the top right of your account click on “Settings”
LinkedIn Privacy Step 2: Click on “Account” on the resulting Account & Settings page.
LinkedIn Privacy Step 3: Click on “Manage Social Advertising” in the “Account” tab you just enabled.
LinkedIn Privacy Step 4: The Last Step is to un-check the option “LinkedIn may use my name, photo in social advertising.” Then save the changes.
You are done! A special thanks goes out to Steve Woodruff for bringing this to our collective attention.
For more social media privacy tips and news here are some places to start:
- Profile pics on social media sites pose privacy risk, researcher warns
- 5 Essential Facebook Privacy Tips
- (for Canadians) Social Networking and Privacy: from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
- Privacy and Social Media – how I tracked down an entirely family from a single tweet
- … search for “social media privacy” to find more results
by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Increasing the bottom line online for businesses since 1997
Done! Thanks for posting this. I hate any leak in privacy without my approval.
I have seen some local ads in Linkedin, job ads, where I see my name and picture as part of the ad copy. Never bothered to see why though until now.
Great post!
Thank you for being on top of things & sharing this valuable info Ross! You rock!
Thanks Juhli! I am so glad it got some attention! Please let me know of any other social faux pas’ like that if you come across them. I would love to fill in readers. Cheers!
Thank you Jun! I really appreciate knowing when our content is of some help. Cheers! Ross
We are looking in to using Linkedin as a tool to market our business as it stands. This is for sure something to go away and remember when that time comes. I would have never even thought about something like this so big thanks for bringing this to my immediate attention.
Linkedin has its shortcomings, but no other resource exist that comes near the power you can leverage with it’s user base.