LinkedIn Email Users to Let Them Know They Were Sued, For Sending Too Many Emails
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| marketingintelligencecenter.com |
LinkedIn have been quietly contending with a class action lawsuit for the past 2 years. The suit came about due to complaints that users were receiving too many unwarranted emails. In particular, the lack of user consent seems to have been the main issue. The company have now settled out of court, shelling out $13 million to make all this unpleasantness go away. In case you were wondering, yes, this did happen in America.
It's the way that LinkedIn notified its users of this that really makes the story though, they emailed them. Provided they don't get sued again, it was just about the perfect way to make the wider world aware of the ridiculousness they've been contending with, and stick two big middle fingers up at the people who sued them in the first place.
The emails in question were the invitation emails people would get if someone on their contacts list imported their address book into LinkedIn. If you didn't respond to the first email, you would get two reminders about it. The crux of it is that the user in question never consented to the second two follow up emails being sent to their contacts. It's bothersome, sure, but it hardly seems like appropriate grounds to sue an entire company. I guess in a world where somebody can be successfully sued by the person whose life they saved, because they weren't formally trained in CPR, the sky's the limit.
Judging from the way LinkedIn have responded, they do regard it as an oversight that needed addressing and their decision to settle out of court was made so that they could make the whole thing go away and concentrate on more important things. LinkedIn is, supposedly, worth around $7.3 billion, so $13 million is probably like a parking ticket to them, but it still strikes me as a disproportionally bloated sum for basically just playing fast and loose with their terms and conditions. I get called by telemarketers on a daily basis and I never consented to that.
Anyone who was using the Add Connections service between 2011 and 2014 may well be eligible for a payout, so it might be worth digging that email out of your inbox to see if it applies to you.
Callum is a film school graduate who is now making a name for himself as a journalist and content writer. His vices include flat whites and 90s hip-hop. Follow him @CallumAtSMF
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LinkedIn Email Users to Let Them Know They Were Sued, For Sending Too Many Emails
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Wednesday, October 07, 2015
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Reviewed by Unknown
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Wednesday, October 07, 2015
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