Closing LinkedIn

For the second, and final time, I am closing LinkedIn. I don’t trust them, I don’t find them useful, I hate them.

Not long ago—not even a year now—I re-created a LinkedIn account, mostly following an invitation to join from one of my friends. I did it against my will, because for whatever reason I have hated LinkedIn even since before it was acquired by Microsoft. Yet, I joined, filled very little information, set privacy settings to fully closed—or so I thought—and moved on.

Soon after I started receiving UCE from medical, or pharmaceutical related companies. As many as ten emails per day. I called one, who happened to be local, mostly out of curiosity (although I was annoyed too). I got a hold of someone who told me in the last 15 years or so of him sending those emails, I was the first person to contact him via phone. He explained to me to the AI program he was using would compile information about people working in the medical field (his business is a collection agency, by the way), which he would, in turn, use to advertise his business. Did I mention I had set my LinkedIn privacy settings to be fully closed?

So, for the second, and final time, I am closing LinkedIn. I don’t trust them, I don’t find them useful, I hate them. I know how to find the people I care about, I don’t need anyone to “link” me to them.