I used to have a LinkedIn account, a long time ago. To register I created an email address that was unique to LinkedIn, and pretty much unguessable ... certainly not amenable to a dictionary attack.

I ended up deciding that I was getting no value from the account, and I heard unpleasant things about the company, so I deleted the account.

Within hours I started to get spam to that unique email address.

It would be interesting to run a semi-controlled experiment to test whether this was a fluke, or if they leaked, sold, or otherwise lost control of my data. But absolutely I will not trust them with anything I want to keep private.

I do not trust LinkedIn to keep my data secure ... I believe they sold it.

Linkedin has been breached a lot over time.

But I have such low faith in the platform that I would readily believe that once they think you're not going to continue adding value, they find unpleasant ways to extract the last bit of value that they reserve only for "ex"-users.

My assumption was that it was an intelligence platform first. Just like Skype, Microsoft decided to randomly buy it.

It amazing really. If you reached out to people and asked them for the information and graph that LinkedIn maintains, most employers would fire them.

Remember when LinkedIn was condemned because they copied Gmail’s login page saying “Log in with Google”, then you entered your password, then they retrieved all your contacts, even the bank, the mailing lists, your ex, and spammed the hell out of them, saying things in your name in the style of “You haven’t joined in 5 days, I want you to subscribe” ?