The issue the app runs into is that in order to get around Apple's closed policies, LinkedIn has you opt into a feature that basically has access to all your emails and adds HTML code to them in a man-in-the-middle manner. Unsurprisingly, this is causing some major criticisms including a few highlighted in this post and summarized below:
- Allowing a third party to access your emails could affect confidentiality of certain emails
- LinkedIn has had security breaches before, most recently last year
- If you use this with corporate email, you're almost definitely in violation of company security policy
- LinkedIn's privacy policy (much like most Web company policies is vague) and it get's modified as needed.
The intention behind the Intro feature is to add "cool" mobile functionality to LinkedIn, but with so much private communication going over email is anyone really comfortable giving LinkedIn that level of access?
Often users click through privacy and terms of service agreements giving easy access to data and content in exchange for convenient useful features--based on the reaction, LinkedIn intro seems to provide much more security concern than "must-have" usefulness. What do you think of the new feature?
LinkedIn's response to the criticism is here.
As the LinkedIn lens for our class, I definitely agree that this raises more security concerns that it ads value. This description immediately too me back to the summer intensive sessions on data encryption with LinkedIn unwrapping messages, adding content and passing them on to the intended receiver.
ReplyDeleteA more secure partner strategy play for LinkedIn may be opening its API to team with Outlook.com to bundle LinkedIn bio details in messages. This may be an interesting opportunity for enterprise email providers to include as a way to strengthen connections with its customers.
I agree with Matt on his point about more security concerns than added value. Whenever I hear stories like this, I immediately think the company is taking the easy way out. Rather than innovate, add features, monetize and connect with our customer further let's just create this sneaky opt-in feature that invades your email inbox.
ReplyDeleteLinkedIn has a lot of data on its customers and I like Matt's idea of finding an email platform partner, but I think they should research this first and find out if a platform like Outlook actually adds value for their customers.