What is Linkedin spam?

Before telling you about Linkedin spam, let’s define what “spam” is. Spam is unsolicited commercial email (UCE). When you think of spammers, it’s typically some sleazeball sending out millions of emails at a time filling your inbox with biz opp offers and sales pitches for fake medicines. However, it’s also common for some dork you met at a networking or other public event to import the details from your business card in order to spam you with his mlm/network marketing offers.

Because it is such a nuisance, most spam is illegal under U.S. and other countries’ laws regardless of whether the actual offer in the email is legitimate or a fraud.

So, what’s the deal with Linkedin spam?

When you set up your Linkedin account, you can set your options on how you want emails delivered. If you receive a lot of email, it makes sense to receive weekly summaries instead of notifications in real time filling your inbox. However, Linkedin has decided to ignore this setting and go beyond the scope of consent to send emails more frequently, i.e. Linkedin spam.

Here’s the moronic email I received today announcing the new Linked spam policy.

Dear Michael,

We want to let you know about a change we will be making to some of our email notifications to make sure you get important messages as soon as possible.

Previously, due to an error on our part, your default setting was to receive a weekly summary email listing any InMails or Introductions sent to you by other LinkedIn members.

We received a lot of feedback from people saying they’d rather receive these messages right away. With that feedback in mind, we will be changing your setting on December 14, 2011 so you’ll receive InMails and Introductions immediately rather than in a weekly digest format.

If you’d like to receive these messages as soon as they are sent, no action is needed. However, if you’d like to change how you receive these messages in the future, you can change your email preferences by selecting the weekly digest format.

To learn more about changing your email notifications, please visit our help center.

Sincerely,

The LinkedIn Team

Linkedin spam policy translated

Dear Michael,

We wanted to let you know that we could care less about what you consented to for receiving emails from us.

In fact, we made the mistake of actually letting you choose weekly summaries instead of having your inbox filled with crap on a regular basis that you have no time or interest in reading.

We’re really going to blame other people wanting more emails (without proof) for the reason we will start flooding your inbox with Linkedin spam beginning next week.

If you want to go back to receiving weekly summaries, please waste some of your time changing your preferences again. Of course, based on this email from us, you shouldn’t expect us to honor your wishes in the future either because we’re clueless when it comes to matters of informed consent and social media.

To learn more about why we have decided send you Linkedin spam, please waste even more of your time by going to our misnamed “help center.”

Sincerely,

Dumb and Dumber

Until the Linkedin spam policy is reversed, I will treat the anti-social site with the contempt it deserves because it disrespects its members.