LinkedIn Hit With Class-Action Lawsuits Over Browser-Extension Scanning | PCMag

Two class-action lawsuits have been filed against LinkedIn over the social network’s alleged covert surveillance of users via browser extension scanning. However, LinkedIn says the dispute is overblown and mischaracterizes practices already disclosed in its privacy policy. “This is a house of cards built entirely upon a fabrication. We do disclose that we scan for browser extensions in our Privacy Policy, in order to detect abuse and provide defense for site stability,” LinkedIn tells PCMag. The class-action lawsuits were filed Monday in a US District Court in California after a German group, Fairlinked e.V., published a report about the Chrome browser extension scanning, which occurs via a JavaScript file on the LinkedIn site.  The report found that LinkedIn will look for 6,222 extensions and claims the company can harness the data to profile users and see whether they’re using competitors’ software. However, LinkedIn says the browser extension scanning is intended to stamp out web scraping. “We do not use this data to infer sensitive information about members,” the company tells PCMag.  LinkedIn’s privacy policy (Credit: LinkedIn) The privacy policy also says LinkedIn can “get information about your network and device (e.g., IP address, proxy server, operating system, web browser, and add-ons),” which
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