Recently, LinkedIn has been involved in a lawsuit regarding user data privacy. Plaintiff Alessandro De La Torre accused LinkedIn of violating its commitment to data privacy in the user agreement by providing private InMail messages of paying users to third parties for AI model training. The move has raised widespread public concern about how data is used by big tech companies and challenged the trust between users and platforms. This article will analyze in detail the background, disputes and subsequent developments of this lawsuit.
Recently, LinkedIn was sued for allegedly providing private InMail messages of paying users to third parties for artificial intelligence (AI) model training.
The lawsuit, filed in California federal court by Alessandro De La Torre, claims that LinkedIn actually used users' private message data for AI training in a policy change announced last year. The policy change allows LinkedIn to use members' posts and personal data to train its AI models and provide the data to third parties.
It is worth noting that LinkedIn clearly states in these policies that the data of users living in Canada, the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Hong Kong, or mainland China will not be used to train content generation AI models. However, for US users, LinkedIn offers a setting that is enabled by default called "Data is used to generate AI improvements." This setting allows LinkedIn and its affiliates to use personal data and content created by users on the platform.
The complaint mentioned that LinkedIn promised in its contract with Premium users not to disclose users' confidential information to third parties. However, the lawsuit still has no concrete evidence as to whether InMail messages were indeed used as the basis for data sharing. The complaint hinges on certain policy changes by LinkedIn and its failure to explicitly deny access to users' InMail content, raising questions about its conduct. The complaint points out that LinkedIn has never publicly denied the possibility of disclosing Premium users' InMail content for third-party AI training.
LinkedIn has denied the accusations, saying they are without merit. A company spokesman said: "These are baseless and false claims." At present, further developments in the case are still ongoing, and the issue of trust between LinkedIn and its users has also caused widespread concern.
Highlight:
LinkedIn is accused of using Premium users’ private message data for AI training, and a lawsuit has been filed in California.
Users' privacy commitments are clear in LinkedIn's contracts, but there is no evidence that their private message data was leaked.
LinkedIn responded to the accusation as "baseless" and the legal dispute continues.
The final outcome of this case will have a profound impact on technology companies' data use policies and user privacy protection, and deserves continued attention. LinkedIn's response and follow-up will also determine whether it can repair its trust relationship with its users.