At this point, this has just become either a guessing game for the well-intentioned, or a place to post paranoid screeds. Neither is really the intention of this blog post, or this forum, which is my personal blog.

So, with apologies, if you submit a comment to this post, it will be deleted.

Adam

I delete comments here for a number of reasons, most typically because they include some form of defamatory remark about me, or in this case LinkedIn. Honestly, I don’t remember your comment.

Maybe I should just edit the comments down, instead of a full delete. However, you’d be surprised how many people forget that this is my personal blog, and some comments are inappropriate.

We do have a feature on the site called “Who Viewed My Profile”, but the data is anonymized to prevent people from identifying exactly which person viewed your profile.

We do not currently use this data as part of our People You May Know algorithm, but as I mentioned above we continue to experiment and utilize different data sets for the algorithm so this may change over time.

Adam

I was a little worried by the fact that you deleted my post on this blog about why people are are being surprised by LinkedIn seemingly “knowing” connections which are unknowable via posted information. I ventured that it was because it was not due to some advanced artificial intelligence but rather because LinkedIn keeps tracks of profiles you have viewed and proposes you as a connection to profiles you have viewed. The fact that you deleted it makes me think that I was on the money with my suggestion. Should we all be worried abvout the profiles we view for fear that they know we viewed them? Or not? Please explain.

1) I can, in fact, say that. We don’t search your hard drive, outlook, or other files.

2) There are several other explanations. In fact, we continue to find new, interesting algorithms on a regular basis. This is one of the more fascinating areas of network/graph research, and we have some of the best PhDs on it.

Take care,
Adam

Assuming that Adam is able to say this, and I am not sure he can, the only other explanation is that the people on the list have you in their contacts and they imported their contacts (i.e. you) into LinkedIn.

Logically, someone searching for my name would know me and chances are that there is a vice versa. From there, only a few connections need to be made through a not-so-sophisticated algorithm. Put something a little bit smarter in place and magic things appear to happen.

Artificial intelligence algorithms can be abused if they are made public, which is why a majority of the most successful algorithms are kept partially, if not totally, black box. You might as well complain to Google about their algorithm for search results.

Adam

I too found this entry out of curiosity how LinkedIn identified someone to whom I thought I was connected only through private emails.

“People are so willing to jump to exotic and negative conclusions” because we’re now conditioned to expect companies (and government) to overstep the line between customer intelligence and privacy in pursuit of competitive advantage; and because no evidence assuaging concerns has been presented. Although it’s surely not what you intended, saying “[a]nd no, I’m not telling you how it works” simply reinforces in my mind that LinkedIn may use methods to which some clients may object. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the consequence of a time in which organizations have and do exploit whatever personal information they can, confessing “mea culpa” only after having been pinned to the mat.

I perceive LinkedIn clients as having different aims than Facebook and MySpace clients. My impression of the latter two services is that their clients are fairly anxious for maximum social connectivity, and are happy to have assistive automatons help them achieve that goal. As a LinkedIn client I want plenty of tools that assist my proactive discovery efforts; but I don’t want automation listing individuals whom it thinks I should know because, if it’s too accurate, I then want to know “how has LinkedIn automation reached these conclusions” and “to whom is LinkedIn providing this information.”

Lastly, the argument “[t]here is no harm in seeing a name and deciding not to connect with them” is logically and emotionally associative to “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear:” It trivializes legitimate privacy concerns.

Rod

There is no harm in seeing a name and deciding not to connect with them. If you have a good enough predictive algorithm, you’ll end up with possible connections that you know personally, but not professionally.

This is one of the reasons the new version of the application, just launched last week, has a “close” X by each name – you can remove it and never be bothered by it again.

Adam

Things like this start me thinking how much is on the internet, how much people can know, and that maybe I shouldn’t be on so many of these sites.

I’m going to assume that means that you feel that you need to know where the names came from in order to trust LinkedIn. I’ll pass it along.

Adam

I love that you spied my post about LinkedIn. It really is freaky effective, that “People You May Know” function.

You know, some people are really into magic, which I’m not. But I gather the appeal is the whole “how does the magician do it,” and then the magician never tells.

Engineers with mysterious programs are clearly so much cooler.