# I closed my LinkedIn account **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 22, 2020, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203 "2020-09-22T04:23:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/21 "2020-09-22T21:21:09Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@robby](#): > > > > I have made a point of always declining permission for LinkedIn to access my email contacts. > > Do they make it obvious that they’re asking, or is it a default-on setup? > > The specific people I asked didn’t even know it was happening; but it was years ago that I asked them. It seems pretty obvious to me. It specifically asks permission to access your contacts, and it’s easy to decline. What’s annoying is that it asks you at setup, and periodically asks you again. With that said, if someone was distracted, I can see it being very easy to click through a bunch of “Continue” boxes without realizing you gave it permission to access your contacts. I just checked my LinkedIn profile, and it says I have no imported contacts, so it appears that I have managed to avoid this. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/22 "2020-09-22T21:23:53Z")
> [@robby](#): > > With that said, if someone was distracted, I can see it being very easy to click through a bunch of “Continue” boxes without realizing you gave it permission to access your contacts. And while people ought to realize it’s got a reason to want access to your contacts, some may not think to interpret ‘access your contacts’ as ‘send multiple emails to everyone in your address book.’ ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/23 "2020-09-22T21:31:15Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And while people ought to realize it’s got a reason to want access to your contacts, some may not think to interpret ‘access your contacts’ as ‘send multiple emails to everyone in your address book.’ Exactly. Though FWIW I just read on a LinkedIn help screen that they no longer automatically send LinkedIn invitations automatically to your contacts. (Which is something I don’t think they ever should have done. No software should be sending out invitations in your name without your explicit approval, much less automatically.) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/24 "2020-09-22T21:35:04Z")
> [@robby](#): > > I just read on a LinkedIn help screen that they no longer automatically send LinkedIn invitations automatically to your contacts. I don’t think I’ve had a batch of those in a while. Maybe they really have quit doing it; which would be good. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/25 "2020-09-22T22:55:40Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > Congrats. For a very long time there was no way to get LinkedIn to truly forget about you. They’d follow you to the ends of the earth with “someone clicked on your profile!” emails. I gave up and changed my email for unrelated reasons and they finally left me alone. Somewhere out there is a LI profile I made 10 or 15 years ago and abandoned, still sucking in other people. The person who had my cell phone number before me (going on 7 years now) also apparently has an old forgotten Linkedin profile, because every so often I get calls or texts from headhunters for her. I wish she would kill it or fix it. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/26 "2020-09-23T00:13:08Z")
I joined LinkedIn because that’s what you did back in the day. I never made much effort with it, other than collecting connections. In what I do, LinkedIn is a Captain Dunsel. Then Microsoft acquired it. Somehow I got on a list to become a LinkedIn Advisor. I signed up. That’s where they send out periodic emails asking opinions about new things they might do, or are about to do, or old stuff they might keep or remove from LinkedIn. I decided to pour sugar in their gas tank and respond with nonsensical answers, or trash a proposed new feature. In short, I became George Hayduke of the LinkedIn Advisors Monkeywrench gang. I’m still a LikedIn Advisor. That’s all I do with it. I need to go to the store now and pick up another bag of C&H pure cane sugar, because another Advisor email arrived. They want my opinion again. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/27 "2020-09-23T03:58:56Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Then Microsoft acquired it Usually my reaction would be “Aah, that explains it!” but I actually doubt in this case that LinkedIn was a superlative offering to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/28 "2020-09-26T14:54:38Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > I’m another linkedin user. I just landed a new client from there two weeks ago or at least the new client checked out my profile on Linkedin. It helps a ton from my consulting company. I post links to my podcast which helps increase my listeners and I generally have 20 or so people check me out and my credentials on there each month. Something like this, though not to the same degree, for me as well. I’ve gotten two consulting offers through LinkedIn, at least one of which was legit and worth a pretty good slug of money (I was a little suspicious of the second offer; it might or might not have been something fraudulent). Old friends have occasionally found me through LinkedIn as well. Despite that, I don’t actually care for LinkedIn. IIRC, I pitted them on this board a few years ago for their failure to follow through when I reported a fake account set up using my dead mother’s personal info. The fake profile finally disappeared a few years later, but AFAICT that wasn’t due to anything LinkedIn did - after initially responding to me and promising follow-up, they completely stopped communicating. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/29 "2020-09-26T20:28:24Z")
A couple of people have now talked about getting consulting work from LinkedIn. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned “self-promoters.” OK, I don’t mean to sound uncharitable, but that seems to be the type of person for whom LinkedIn works best: people who are hustling for clients. I’m a Japanese interpreter/translator with an MBA, and I think I might have gotten one contact through LinkedIn in the whole time I’ve used it. I’ve also never seen any easy way to look for potential clients on there–then again, I really haven’t looked for clients in the past 12 years or so. It’s just never done anything for me, and I decided that it wasn’t worth handling all the crap emails that come from it. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/30 "2020-09-26T20:45:16Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > A couple of people have now talked about getting consulting work from LinkedIn. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned “self-promoters.” OK, I don’t mean to sound uncharitable, but that seems to be the type of person for whom LinkedIn works best: people who are hustling for clients. Yeah, I get contacted a lot from two groups of people. The first group consists of recruiters (i.e. headhunters), which is OK as far as it goes, although I’m currently employed and not looking for a job. The second group is far more numerous: people trying to add me as a contact so they can bombard me with potential client offers. However, I don’t add anybody to my contacts unless I personally know them, so that cuts down on this. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/31 "2020-09-26T21:51:52Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > that seems to be the type of person for whom LinkedIn works best: people who are hustling for clients. Heh, you could be right, but I’m totally not a self-promoter. However, I have an unusual skill set - a strong editorial/publications management background combined with knowledge of infrastructure finance and policy in Indonesia. Not many clients would need that combination of expertise, but I was a very good fit for the legit nibble I got. (I ended up turning them down; the assignment was much larger than I wanted to take on at the time.) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2020, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/32 "2020-09-26T22:38:22Z")
> [@robby](#): > > On the contrary, I actually like LinkedIn for a few specific purposes, mainly that of keeping track of contact info for business acquaintances. > > There’s a lot of people I meet at work who aren’t “friends” of mine, but who are instead work acquaintances (including coworkers and former coworkers) that I like to keep track of for networking, references, etc. I don’t have (nor do I want) their personal contact info, so if they change companies, I may lose contact with them entirely. > > FWIW, I have made a point of always declining permission for LinkedIn to access my email contacts. I have no desire to spam everyone I know. I also like LinkedIn. It’s the social media for people I don’t want to be friends with. I can message or keep track of people who are limited to professional acquaintanceship. It’s a handy thing. It’s also to have a business-only route of communication for strangers who might want to get in touch with me for professional reasons. I don’t want to be on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or whatever. But I like that people can find me on LinkedIn if they really need to. And vice versa. I appreciate being able to get in touch with networks of professionals without having to find their contact information. It’s also handy for looking up the resumes of people I don’t know personally. In certain lines of business, if you don’t have your credentials posted on LinkedIn, that’s a sign that you’re not serious. Also, one expects to be able to find job applicants on LinkedIn. Not there? Looks fishy. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203/33 "2020-10-02T00:49:39Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Also, one expects to be able to find job applicants on LinkedIn. Not there? Looks fishy. What conclusions would one draw, however? 1. The person is not on LinkedIn, therefore not a real person, therefore fishy. 2. The person has been banned from LinkedIn! Therefore fishy. 3. The person can’t do social media, therefore inept. 4. The person won’t do social media–therefore antisocial! Maybe HR types think this way, but my MBA job search soured me on HR types forever, so oh well… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-closed-my-linkedin-account/921203.md?page=1)