Microsoft is running one of the largest corporate espionage operations in modern history. Every time any of LinkedIn’s one billion users visits linkedin.com, hidden code searches their computer for installed software, collects the results, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers and to third-party companies including an American-Israeli cybersecurity firm. The user is never asked. Never told. LinkedIn’s privacy policy does not mention it. Because LinkedIn knows each user’s real name, employer, and job title, it is not searching anonymous visitors. It is searching identified people at identified companies. Millions of companies. Every day. All over the world.

Microsoft is running one of the largest corporate espionage operations in modern history.

Every time any of LinkedIn’s one billion users visits linkedin.com, hidden code searches their computer for installed software, collects the results, and transmits them to LinkedIn’s servers and to third-party companies including an American-Israeli cybersecurity firm.

The user is never asked. Never told. LinkedIn’s privacy policy does not mention it.

Because LinkedIn knows each user’s real name, employer, and job title, it is not searching anonymous visitors. It is searching identified people at identified companies. Millions of companies. Every day. All over the world.

  • GreenShimada@lemmy.worldEnglish
    544·
    2 hours ago

    This is straight up misinformation. First off, it’s perfectly legal.

    LinkedIn does browser fingerprinting. It’s the same thing Google and Meta do. It’s how Google Ads is shifting to a post-adblocker revenue stream.

    Browser fingerprints show fonts used, audio codecs, WebGL render data, processor, operating system - enough that if you add up several factors together, it makes a statistically unique fingerprint. it does NOT scan applications on your computer. It can’t. It DOES scan which browser extensions you have running (if they affect page loading).

    If you check your email and then close that and go to Google in an incognito window and search for porn - Google will fucking know what you’re looking at. Gmail and all Google apps all fingerprint, and then you’ll notice how Google ads trackers are on most sites online? Yep. That’s how they track you.

    Use a VPN? Use an ad blocker? Great - Google doesn’t care. Google can track your fingerprint.

    See your own fingerprint - check how it know it’s you visit after visit.

    https://fingerprint.com/

    https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

    https://amiunique.org/

    • inlandempire@jlai.luEnglish
      15·
      2 hours ago

      it does NOT scan applications on your computer

      technically browser extensions are considered applications under EU’s GDPR

      It DOES scan which browser extensions you have running (if they affect page loading).

      as per their report:

      Why two detection methods

      Method Technique What it catches
      AED fetch() against known resource paths Extensions that are merely installed, even if they inject nothing into the current page
      Spectroscopy Full DOM tree walk Extensions that actively modify the page, even if they are not in LinkedIn’s hardcoded list
      • Alberat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        45 minutes ago

        it’s misleading to say its searching your computer tho…? this invokes the thought of LinkedIn getting to rifle through your files like it has access to ~/Documents/ or smth.

        but yeah tracking you over the internet is similarly bad

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      71·
      2 hours ago

      I think the argument is that since some of the extensions that are probed can be political in nature, which can reveal political identity, which is potentially unlawful in the EU. However, it really needs to be up to a judge to make a decision on that.

      In general what they’re doing is legal, and the BrowserGate people are using niggling little details, a handful of extensions out of the 6000 probed, to justify this argument. I couldn’t say, especially as someone from outside the EU, whether this is actually illegal or not, but it’s definitely in a nebulous area at the moment.

      Though I agree it’s sensationalized in terms of claiming it’s “searching your computer” and doing “corporate espionage.”