LinkedIn Class Action Lawsuit

What You Need to Know Before Submitting Your Claim

I received an emailed legal notice from LinkedIn on Friday notifying me of a class action lawsuit. I also got a bunch of emails from people asking me if it was truly genuine or some sort of phishing email.

It is true.

LinkedIn just recently settled a class action lawsuit for $13M. The lawsuit accused LinkedIn of accessing members’ address books to send an email connection request. The court ruled that the members did give permission to import the contacts and have LinkedIn send connection requests; however, members did not allow two subsequent reminder emails to be sent.

So I clicked the link to the claim form and entered my claim ID. And this is what I found:

Tread carefully, my friends! By clicking the Agree and Submit button you are declaring under PENALTY OF PERJURY that you used Add Connections to import your information during a 3 year period.

I never kept a record of when I utilized Add Connections. I know I’ve used it but I can’t honestly say it was between September 17, 2011 and October 31, 2014.

And can you say you were INJURED by any such use of your name or name and profile picture? I recall getting an email or two from people who were confused as to why I was pushing LinkedIn on them but other than being slightly inconvenienced, I can’t say I was injured.

As tempting as it might be to grab what seems like free money, I can’t attest to those terms.

Can you? Let me know in the comments.

I never liked LinkedIn’s emailing habits and if this lawsuit is responsible for them cutting back, that’s a good thing. With that said, this lawsuit most likely won’t be a big payday for anyone but the lawyers involved.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn’s Publishing Platform