I almost titled this post “LinkedIn Harassment”, but harassment really goes beyond LinkedIn and I didn’t want to imply that the site is bothersome, or that the site is used as a bother.
But really – I wanted to talk about what you might do if you’re being harassed, and you still want to use LinkedIn.
Let’s look into some settings the site has and how you might use them.
Recent inquiries…
This article is driven in part by a few contacts I’ve had lately – the individual would like to restrict information to someone that is harassing them.
ug…
It isn’t a pleasant thought, and I empathize with their desire.
Disconnecting
You certainly want to make sure that you no longer connect to your harasser. Follow the advice in Removing LinkedIn Connections to take care of that.
(And while you can stop future activity, you can’t go back in time to last night to keep them from using the features available to a direct connection…)
Not much on the profile front
And the quick answer is that there isn’t much of anything to do to keep a specific individual from seeing your profile.
A profile is viewable by anybody in your network and those that pay LinkedIn for additional features.
So even if you disconnect from someone, that person is probably still connected to someone else and you’ll still be 2nd or 3rd level connections.
The answer is to remember that your profile is available to the public – which means anyone in any location. And to make sure that you only include items that you are happy with everyone in the world knowing about you.
Updates
LinkedIn shares your updates according to your wishes – and as much as I love the concept of updates and included them in my Favorite Linked Things, they could be abused.
Edit this under Settings -> Member Feed Visibility.
You can select Nobody, My Connections, My Network, Everybody.
Select “My Connections” to make sure that updates only go to those you connect to – the people you know and trust.
Company updates
Be sure to also check Settings -> Profile and Status Updates.
LinkedIn will also echo your updates to a company profile and you can ensure that does not happen here.
Drastic Measures
And yes, in certain circumstances, I can see a desire to remove yourself from LinkedIn as a reasonable action.
I’d backup the profile and connections (see When Accidents Happen for instructions on how to do that) before doing so.
And then just follow the instructions on Settings -> Close Your Account.
Sad that people behave badly…
I’m an optimist and generally happy person, and it’s unfortunate that people mistreat each other. I’m happy if you found this article helpful, but am sorry that you needed that kind of help…
And now that you’ve cut off this flow of information, let’s get back to making things happen – with LinkedIn.
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock