Company allegedly opted in users for data sharing then changed the Ts&Cs
LinkedIn has been sued in a class action lawsuit by Premium subscribers in the US who allege that the platform illegally shared their private messages with 3rd parties to train AI models.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of all LinkedIn Premium subscribers, alleges that in Aug. 2024 LinkedIn illegally opted users into having their data, including private InMail messages, processed for training AI.
Privacy Policy
It says the company then updated its privacy policy on 18th Sept., to state that users could choose not to share data for AI purposes, but that doing so would not affect training that had already taken place.
The plaintiffs say this action shows that LinkedIn was trying to cover its tracks, having already taken the data for AI training.
They are seeking damages of $1,000 per affected individual under the US ‘Stored Communications Act’, with an additional sum for damages.
LinkedIn has described the lawsuit’s claims as “false” & “with no merit.”
Premium Users
The site has around 175m Premium users worldwide, representing around 39% of LinkedIn’s total subscriber base & generating some $1.7b annually for the professional social media site, according to Analyzify.
Approximately 230m LinkedIn users are based in the US, from which it can be calculated that an estimated 90m may be Premium subscribers. In this case, should the lawsuit be completely successful, the potential payout could be as much as $90b. This scenario, while extremely unlikely, demonstrates the scale.
Fined
This is not the 1st data protection lawsuit directed at LinkedIn. In Oct. 2024, LinkedIn was fined €310m by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission for allegedly using member data for advertising purposes without obtaining proper consent, violating the GDPR.
In 2012, LinkedIn settled a class-action lawsuit for $1.25m following a major data breach that compromised 6.5m passwords.
