Recently, LinkedIn was sued for allegedly providing the private InMail messages of paid users to third parties for artificial intelligence (AI) model training.
The lawsuit was filed by Alessandro De La Torre in the federal court of California, claiming that LinkedIn, in a policy change announced last year, actually used users' private message data for AI training. This 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 noteworthy that LinkedIn explicitly stated in these policies that user data from Canada, the EU, the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland, Hong Kong, or mainland China would not be used for training content-generating AI models. However, for U.S. users, LinkedIn offers a default-enabled setting called "Data Used for AI Improvements." This setting allows LinkedIn and its affiliates to use personal data and content created by users on the platform.
The complaint mentions that LinkedIn promised in contracts with Premium users not to disclose users' confidential information to third parties. However, the lawsuit lacks specific evidence to confirm whether InMail messages were indeed shared as data. The basis of the complaint lies in LinkedIn's policy changes and its failure to clearly deny accessing users' InMail content, leading to questions about its actions. The lawsuit points out that LinkedIn has never publicly denied the possibility of disclosing Premium users' InMail content for third-party AI training.
LinkedIn denied these allegations, stating that they are baseless. A company spokesperson said, "These are completely unfounded false claims." Currently, further developments regarding this case are ongoing, and the trust issue between LinkedIn and its users has attracted widespread attention.
Key Points:
🌐 LinkedIn is accused of using Premium users' private message data for AI training, and the lawsuit has been filed in California.
🔒 The privacy commitments for users are clearly stated in LinkedIn's contracts, but there is no evidence indicating that their private message data has been leaked.
📉 LinkedIn responded to the allegations by stating they are "baseless," and the legal dispute is ongoing.
