Check your e-mail LinkedIn users, because you could get a piece of the $13 million the business-oriented social network agreed to pay to settle a class-action privacy lawsuit.
The 2013 lawsuit alleges that LinkedIn users did not agree to the use of their names or likenesses in reminder e-mails the company sent to its members.
LinkedIn allows people on the site to import contacts from their external email accounts and invite them to connect on the social network. But if that person doesn t accept the invitation within a certain amount of time, the social media company sends them up to two reminder e-mails.
The Mountain View tech firm denied the allegations, clarified that up to two reminder e-mails are sent with a connection invitation and will introduce a way to stop these notices from being sent.
We decided to resolve this case in order to focus on finding additional ways to improve our members experiences on LinkedIn, the company said in a statement to SiliconBeat.
LinkedIn users, who used this Add Connections feature between Sept. 17, 2011 and Oct. 31, 2014, are now receiving e-mails that they could be eligible for a part of the settlement if it s approved in federal court. An estimated 20.8 million users could be impacted by this lawsuit and they have until Dec. 14 to file a claim, exclude themselves from the settlement, object or speak at a hearing where the settlement is expected to get approved.
To find out more about the settlement, click here.
This isn t the first class-action lawsuit LinkedIn settled this year. The company also settled for $1.25 million a lawsuit that alleges the social network didn t do enough to protect the passwords and personal information of its paying users. In 2012, hackers stole and published 6.5 million LinkedIn member passwords on a Russian hacker website.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
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