I received an invitation to NotchUp.com, a website trying to reshape the job market. I don’t have a problem with them trying to reshape the way we fundamentally have been doing things. What really annoyed me though is the fact that, even if I don’t want to be part of this network, some other friend of mine (and many others who I have never met in life but ended up my linkedin links and I wish I could upgrade/downgrade my links) can import all of his linkedin contacts so that NotchUp.com gets access to my information, without my permission! And why would anyone want to import their trusted friends list to NotchUp.com? So that they could earn 10% of what their friends earn by interviewing for the first one year. While I may certainly have a few good friends who won’t be tempted to giving away my information for that kind of a deal, I can’t trust everyone to have the same level of aversion towards this kind of practices.
Based on recent news about Plaxo mining data from LinkedIn in a similar fashion, I don’t know if there is a fundamental flaw in LinkedIn that is exposing the data or if that’s inevitable. The real problem is, unlike most security issues where there are 2 or 3 parties involved, in this there are 4 parties. LinkedIn, NotchUp, my link on LinkedIn and there is me. If the first three are doing things knowingly/unknowingly that gives them access to my information, however little that might be, without my consent, then forget Open Social. I value privacy more than portability.
poeticcode 