Just a few more bits of creepiness that have happened since I wrote this article a couple years ago:
- My wife signed up for LinkedIn years ago with her work email but never added any connections. She got an email to her personal email address from LinkedIn saying "David Veldt is inviting you to join LinkedIn!" I have no permissions that I could find set to allow such a thing.
- Just in the past week, two people have requested to connect with me that I haven't seen in over 10 years and live a couple states away from. Our only "connection" is that we're Facebook friends. There's no way I'm in their contacts list. I find it highly unlikely that they've searched or viewed my profile because we have absolutely nothing in common.
- The thing lately that pisses me off the most is how much they're trying to get me to mindlessly give them access to my contact list. On the app, sometimes a screen pops up when I open it to "Find more connections" but turns out they want authorization for my address book. Same thing on the notifications; they show a notification in the connections icon which usually indicates someone wants to connect, but instead its just a generic "hey, we can find you more of these!" type of notification. Reminds me of the cartoons where the salesman keeps popping up from laundry hampers and behind trees.
Author here: Thanks for pointing this out, the article is a couple years old. I like how vague this new bit is as well. I'm sure we'd never find out any details about these "similar technologies" or which "third party sites"
Author here: You're probably right on that particular example. Unfortunately there's still a number of others that have no other explanation other than undisclosed relationships with other sites. Just the other day, I had two requests to connect from people I'm only friends with on FB; I haven't seen either of them for over a decade so I'm definitely not in their contacts list.
Not necessarily. I've had recommendations from people I've never exchanged emails or phone numbers with and our only "connection" has been through Facebook or Twitter. They'd have no reason or way to have me in their contacts list. As the article describes, they've even recommended people who just happen to share the same name as someone I DO know, but otherwise have not the slightest connection in the world with.
