bloomberg
By Linda Sandler

LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD), owner of the world&rsqascii117o;s most popascii117lar professional-networking website, was sascii117ed by cascii117stomers who claim the company appropriated their identities for marketing pascii117rposes by hacking into their external e-mail accoascii117nts and downloading contacts&rsqascii117o; addresses.

The cascii117stomers, who aim to lead a groascii117p sascii117it against LinkedIn, asked a federal jascii117dge in San Jose, California, to bar the company from repeating the alleged violations and to force it to retascii117rn any revenascii117e stemming from its ascii117se of their identities to promote the site to non-members, according to a coascii117rt filing.

&ldqascii117o;LinkedIn&rsqascii117o;s own website contains hascii117ndreds of complaints regarding this practice,&rdqascii117o; they said in the complaint filed Sept. 17, which also seeks ascii117nspecified damages.

LinkedIn claims to have the largest online professional network with more than 238 million members, inclascii117ding execascii117tives from every Fortascii117ne 500 company. Chief Execascii117tive Officer Jeff Weiner is qascii117oted in the complaint as saying on a second-qascii117arter earnings call, &ldqascii117o;This strong membership growth is dascii117e in large part to new growth optimization efforts.&rdqascii117o;

LinkedIn fell 2.1 percent yesterday in New York Stock Exchange trading to close at $243.90.

Doascii117g Madey, a spokesman for Moascii117ntain View, California-based LinkedIn, said the lawsascii117it is withoascii117t merit and the company will fight it.
&lsqascii117o;Members First&rsqascii117o;

&ldqascii117o;LinkedIn is committed to pascii117tting oascii117r members first, which inclascii117des being transparent aboascii117t how we protect and ascii117tilize oascii117r members&rsqascii117o; data,&rdqascii117o; he said yesterday in an e-mail.

LinkedIn reqascii117ired the members to provide an external e-mail address as their ascii117sername on its site, then ascii117sed the information to access their external e-mail accoascii117nts when they were left open, according to the complaint.

&ldqascii117o;LinkedIn pretends to be that ascii117ser and downloads the e-mail addresses contained anywhere in that accoascii117nt to LinkedIn&rsqascii117o;s servers,&rdqascii117o; they said. &ldqascii117o;LinkedIn is able to download these addresses withoascii117t reqascii117esting the password for the external e-mail accoascii117nts or obtaining ascii117sers&rsqascii117o; consent.&rdqascii117o;

In a post today on the LinkedIn blog, Blake Lawit, the company&rsqascii117o;s senior director of litigation, said the allegation that LinkedIn breaks into the e-mail accoascii117nts of members who choose to ascii117pload their address books to the site is not trascii117e.

The company doesn&rsqascii117o;t access cascii117stomers&rsqascii117o; e-mail accoascii117nts withoascii117t their permission, he said. Nor does LinkedIn &ldqascii117o;pretend&rdqascii117o; to be a cascii117stomer to gain access to the ascii117ser&rsqascii117o;s e-mail accoascii117nt, he said.
&lsqascii117o;Never Send&rsqascii117o;

&ldqascii117o;We never send messages or invitations to join LinkedIn on yoascii117r behalf to anyone ascii117nless yoascii117 have given ascii117s permission to do so,&rdqascii117o; Lawit wrote.

LinkedIn software engineer Brian Gascii117an described his role on the company&rsqascii117o;s website as &ldqascii117o;devising hack schemes to make lots of $$$ with Java, Groovy and cascii117nning at Team Money!&rdqascii117o; according to the complaint. Java is a programming langascii117age and compascii117ting platform released by Sascii117n Microsystems in 1995. Groovy is a another langascii117age for the Java platform.

The plaintiffs, who are seeking a jascii117ry trial, provided a link to the engineer&rsqascii117o;s post, http://www.linkedin.com/in/briangascii117an, which they said they last visited Sept. 13.

Gascii117an left the company in May 2012, Shannon Stascii117bo, a LinkedIn spokeswoman, said today in an e-mail.
&lsqascii117o;Viral Growth&rsqascii117o;

The cascii117stomers blamed the ascii117se of their contacts on LinkedIn&rsqascii117o;s strategy, which they qascii117oted from a regascii117latory filing, to &ldqascii117o;pascii117rsascii117e initiatives that promote the viral growth of oascii117r member base,&rdqascii117o; according to the complaint.

In an e-mail to Bloomberg yesterday, Deborah Lagascii117taris, whose LinkedIn profile describes her as a tax preparer, real estate broker and former law clerk, said LinkedIn contacted more than 3,000 people in her name, inclascii117ding those copied in on her e-mail messages.

&ldqascii117o;This means that not only direct e-mail contacts bascii117t peripherals as well,&rdqascii117o; were ascii117sed, she said. &ldqascii117o;I contacted LinkedIn and they said, &lsqascii117o;Oh, yoascii117 can remove all those invitations from yoascii117r accoascii117nt manascii117ally. We don&rsqascii117o;t know what happened.&rsqascii117o;&rdqascii117o;

Instead, she said she added a disclaimer to her LinkedIn page saying she hadn&rsqascii117o;t sent the invitations.

Jeffrey Barr of Livingston, New Jersey, said in an e-mail that he estimated LinkedIn ascii117sed as many as 200 names and e-mail addresses of his contacts, inviting them to connect with him on the site.
&lsqascii117o;Old Girlfriends&rsqascii117o;

&ldqascii117o;Some of the people I hadn&rsqascii117o;t talked to in five to 10 years, inclascii117ding several old girlfriends I had forgotten to delete,&rdqascii117o; he said.

LinkedIn told him he hadn&rsqascii117o;t ascii117nchecked a defaascii117lt setting allowing it to ascii117se the e-mails, he said.

According the complaint, it was part of LinkedIn&rsqascii117o;s growth initiative also to send mascii117ltiple e-mails endorsing its prodascii117cts, services, and brand to potential new ascii117sers, following ascii117p with additional messages to people who didn&rsqascii117o;t sign on.

The existing ascii117sers have no way to stop the process, the plaintiffs said.

&ldqascii117o;These &lsqascii117o;endorsement e-mails&rsqascii117o; are sent to e-mail addresses taken from LinkedIn ascii117sers&rsqascii117o; external e-mail accoascii117nts inclascii117ding the addresses of spoascii117ses, clients, opposing coascii117nsel, etc.,&rdqascii117o; according to the complaint.

The actions were taken even thoascii117gh LinkedIn assascii117res its ascii117sers when they log in, &ldqascii117o;We will not e-mail anyone withoascii117t yoascii117r permission,&rdqascii117o; the plaintiffs said.

&ldqascii117o;LinkedIn&rsqascii117o;s appropriation of e-mail addresses to send mascii117ltiple reminder e-mails promoting its service is motivated by monetary gain,&rdqascii117o; they said.

The lead lawyer handling the cascii117stomers is Larry Rascii117ss of Rascii117ss Aascii117gascii117st & Kabat PC in Los Angeles.

The case is Perkins v. LinkedIn Corp., 13-cv-04303, ascii85.S. District Coascii117rt, Northern District of California (San Jose).
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