How does LinkedIn pull their data?

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Kiopa_Matt

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May 13, 2011
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This has me a bit intrigued. How does LinkedIn pull in the data that they do? Signed up for a new account a bit ago using just my name, and first_name@domain.com for an e-mail, and that's it. Didn't link Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, or anything else to it.

All of a sudden, LinkedIn knows all about me. They know I'm involved in the bitcoin industry, they know who my brothers are, etc. How the hell do they get that info from just my name and e-mail?

Ok, I can somewhat see the bitcoin thing. They could crawl the domain.com in my e-mail address for keywords, or do a search on domain.com and see what Google shoots out, etc... that would give LinkedIn an indication. Does LinkedIn actually do this, or how did it know I'm involved in bitcoin?

How the hell do they know who my brothers are though? I have a pretty common last name, shared with millions of people, and almost never speak to my brothers. Plus they're probably be the last people on this planet to use Facebook, and neither use web based e-mail -- they use corporate intranet or ISP provided e-mail for friends / family.

How is LinkedIn pulling this data, and where from?
 


They ALSO pulled one of my paypal addresses and linked it to my account and keep spamming it with emails even though I keep unsubscribing.

Anyways, people sell data all day everyday. EricVorhees talked about this a while back.
 
They will also use the IP you signed up//in with to relate // friend suggestion to anyone else who has used the same IP or near by IP blocks to sign into LinkedIN network.
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
This has me a bit intrigued. How does LinkedIn pull in the data that they do? Signed up for a new account a bit ago using just my name, and first_name@domain.com for an e-mail, and that's it. Didn't link Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, or anything else to it.

All of a sudden, LinkedIn knows all about me. They know I'm involved in the bitcoin industry, they know who my brothers are, etc. How the hell do they get that info from just my name and e-mail?

Ok, I can somewhat see the bitcoin thing. They could crawl the domain.com in my e-mail address for keywords, or do a search on domain.com and see what Google shoots out, etc... that would give LinkedIn an indication. Does LinkedIn actually do this, or how did it know I'm involved in bitcoin?

How the hell do they know who my brothers are though? I have a pretty common last name, shared with millions of people, and almost never speak to my brothers. Plus they're probably be the last people on this planet to use Facebook, and neither use web based e-mail -- they use corporate intranet or ISP provided e-mail for friends / family.

How is LinkedIn pulling this data, and where from?
Click to expand...

Who else knows that e-mail address of yours?

Chances are, your first_name@domain.com is in their address books, and they are already on LinkedIn and they gave LinkedIn the keys to their Facebook, etc. as well.

You covered that about your brothers, but there are other options. Do you have a sister who lists all of you as brothers? Parents that list you and your brothers as sons? Examples of indirect associations, etc.

What about those social/share icons on so many websites? If you visit a site that has a Share-on-LinkedIn, LinkedIn now knows you've been there because of the cookie.

There are lots of ways, and you can bet they are combining them since LinkedIn's entire business is graph networks.
 
Some of these articles were very helpful.
LinkedIn, by default, has all their data sharing allowed in settings.

Go to settings and turn off: data sharing w/ 3rd parties, linkedin plugins in 3rd party sites, and profile research participation.
 
“LinkedIn attempts to access a user's Gmail account if the user has Gmail open in another browser window or has not logged out of Gmail. If an email account is open, LinkedIn accesses the account by using the open email session. LinkedIn does not prompt members for a password. Instead, LinkedIn sweeps the external email account for every email address a user has been emailed by, CCed, or emailed. For many users this is thousands of addresses. “


Goodnight sweet prince.
 
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