LinkedIn

In October 2024, the Irish Data Protection Commission fined LinkedIn EUR 310 million for processing personal data for behavioral analysis and targeted advertising without valid lawful basis. The investigation originated from a 2018 complaint by French nonprofit La Quadrature Du Net. The DPC found LinkedIn's consent was not freely given, its legitimate interests claims were invalid, and it violated GDPR fairness and transparency principles. LinkedIn was ordered to bring processing into compliance within three months.

In 2020, LinkedIn committed to doubling the number of Black and Latino leaders, managers, and senior individual contributors within five years. By FY2022, LinkedIn exceeded its Black senior employee target with 127% growth and achieved 74% growth for senior Latino employees. Black employee representation rose to 7.2% (up over 50% in a single year), Latino representation reached 7.4%, women in technical roles reached 27.8%, and the global workforce reached 47% women. LinkedIn also achieved no gaps in attrition rates for Black and Latino employees or women in leadership for the first time.

LinkedIn filed suit against hiQ Labs for scraping publicly available LinkedIn profile data. The landmark case reached the Supreme Court in 2021, which remanded it. The Ninth Circuit ruled scraping public data doesn't violate the CFAA. Ultimately LinkedIn won a $500,000 judgment in December 2022 on breach of contract and CFAA claims related to hiQ's use of fake accounts. The case established key precedents about platform control over publicly accessible data versus open internet principles.

LinkedIn settled a class action lawsuit (Perkins v. LinkedIn Corp.) for $13 million in 2015. The platform had harvested new users' email contacts through deceptive interface design and sent repeated invitation emails to their contacts without clear consent. LinkedIn sent up to two follow-up reminder emails per contact, making it appear the user was personally endorsing LinkedIn. The 'Skip this step' option was deliberately obscured with a tiny link placed outside the main UI box. The settlement covered LinkedIn members who used the 'Add Connections' feature between September 2011 and October 2014.

From 2014 when LinkedIn launched in China, the platform complied with Beijing's censorship directives, blocking content related to Tiananmen, politically sensitive topics, and profiles of journalists and academics. According to LinkedIn's 2022 transparency report, the company complied with 42 of 43 Chinese government content removal requests in 2021. LinkedIn also blocked international users' profiles from being visible in China, creating a two-tiered system. After Congressional criticism in October 2021, LinkedIn announced it would shut down its full China service, replacing it with a jobs-only app (InJobs/InCareer) which itself was shut down in August 2023.