LinkedIn is in hot water with some users over its spammy marketing practices, and the problem isn't going away as easily as the company would have liked.
A federal judge this week ruled that LinkedIn users can move forward with a class-action lawsuit, which claims that the business-focused social network spammed their email contacts with annoying invitations to join the site. Filed in September, the lawsuit accuses LinkedIn of "breaking into its users' third-party email accounts, downloading email addresses that appear in the account, and then sending out multiple reminder emails … advertising LinkedIn to non-members."
LinkedIn asked U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif. to dismiss the case, saying users consented to letting the company email their contacts by clicking through a series of permission screens. Koh, however, found that while customers did agree to let LinkedIn send one email, they did not give the company the go-ahead to send two additional messages when the first one was ignored.
The practice "could injure users' reputations by allowing contacts to think that the users are the types of people who spam their contacts or are unable to take the hint that their contacts do not want to join their LinkedIn network," Koh wrote in the decision, according to Reuters.
She dismissed other claims, however, including one that LinkedIn violated a federal wiretap law. The customers will now need to file an amended lawsuit before the case can proceed.
In a statement emailed to PCMag on Friday, LinkedIn said it is "pleased that the Court rejected plaintiffs' unfounded 'hacking' claims and found that LinkedIn members consented to sharing their email contacts with LinkedIn."
"We will continue to contest the remaining claims, as we believe they have no merit," the company said.
In their initial complaint, the LinkedIn customers alleged that the company requires users to provide an email address when signing up for the service — a common request among Web services. But they also said that LinkedIn takes this information and uses it to "hack into the user's external email account and extract email addresses." Once that happens, LinkedIn spams one's friends and contacts with emails promoting the company and enticing new users to join up, the plaintiffs alleged.
LinkedIn previously denied the allegations, writing in a September blog post that it does not access users' email accounts without permission.
"Claims that we 'hack' or 'break into' members' accounts are false," LinkedIn said. "We never send messages or invitations to join LinkedIn on your behalf to anyone unless you have given us permission to do so."