since that browsergate site about LinkedIn seems to be gaining traction I figure I should mention:

  • yes, LinkedIn does do what's being claimed (though, it's that it probes for specific extensions you're running, using features in chrome's API - it doesn't "search your computer")
  • it does seem to have been doing this since at least as far back as 2017, and there has been intermittent reporting on it over the years
  • I'm fairly confident the copy on the site was generated by (or at least went through) an LLM, so idk that this site is the best way to spread the issue around

edit: and as someone else noted in the replies, looking through the list of extensions of scans for... they're pretty much all "AI"/scraper/automation plugins. so, should LinkedIn be doing this, or even able to do this in Chrome? no! but also, it does seem like the stuff they're scanning for is all extensions that shouldn't exist to begin with tbh

edit 2: please see this follow-up post which proves this is just a shitty campaign by people who made an addon called "Teamfluence" that got blocked by LinkedIn

GitHub - dandrews/nefarious-linkedin: :shipit: A look at how LinkedIn spies on its users.

:shipit: A look at how LinkedIn spies on its users. - dandrews/nefarious-linkedin

GitHub

@vantiss just read through the site before seeing this post and yeah, it definitely seems to have been written by an llm :(

among other things, there are so many "it's not X, it's Y" structures in places where it is extremely unnecessary. and also, one of the repos they cite in the Credits page for "running this research" has a .claude folder in it

@b yeah - I looked into who is bringing the lawsuit and it's... a LinkedIn addon maker for automation/scraping/LLM stuff called TeamFluence,

and the github repo with the .claude in it is built by a guy who is an ex-Twitter employee that now does entrepreneur/startup stuff and is an active LLM booster