LinkedIn: Proposed Class Action Lawsuit’s Claims Have ‘No Merit’

Editor’s Note: PYMNTS reported Jan. 22 about a proposed class action lawsuit filed against LinkedIn. As reported, a LinkedIn spokesperson said at the time: “These are false claims with no merit.”

On Jan. 30, LinkedIn vice president of legal Sarah Wight wrote in a post on the platform: “Sharing the good news that a baseless lawsuit against LinkedIn was withdrawn earlier today. It falsely alleged that LinkedIn shared private member messages with third parties for AI training purposes. We never did that. It is important to always set the record straight.”

LinkedIn is facing a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges that the social media platform disclosed Premium customers’ private InMail messages to third parties without permission to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) models.

The proposed class action was filed Tuesday (Jan. 21) night, Reuters reported Wednesday (Jan. 22).

It alleges that LinkedIn was “fully aware” it violated users’ privacy and attempted to “cover its tracks” when it updated its privacy policy in September to say that data could be used to train AI models and added in an FAQ link that using a privacy setting that was introduced in August to opt out of sharing their personal data “does not affect training that has already taken place,” according to the report.

The proposed class action seeks damages for breach of contract, violation of California’s unfair competition law and violations of the federal Stored Communications Act, per the report.

Reached by PYMNTS, a LinkedIn spokesperson said in an emailed statement: “These are false claims with no merit.”

LinkedIn’s privacy policy update and use of users as unwitting AI trainers ignited a firestorm over data privacy and consumer trust, PYMNTS reported in September.

The company’s move could force businesses to reconsider their digital footprint due to the risk of compromising sensitive information, David McInerney, commercial manager for data privacy at Cassie, told PYMNTS at the time.

“A whopping 93% [of consumers] are concerned about the security of their personal information online,” McInerney said.

Apple recently agreed to pay $95 million to settle a privacy lawsuit that alleged that when its voice assistant Siri was activated unintentionally, it shared private discussions it overhead with Apple, and that Apple shared these communications with third parties without users’ consent.

The company told 9to5Mac at the time that it uses “Siri data to improve Siri.”

“Siri data has never been used to build marketing profiles and it has never been sold to anyone for any purpose,” the company said, per the report. “Apple settled this case to avoid additional litigation so we can move forward from concerns about third-party grading that we already addressed in 2019.”