LinkedIn lost a round in federal court when a district judge refused to dismiss a class action lawsuit that claims the company gathered e-mail addresses, contact lists and e-mail history from users of their service without permission. Users were upset that LinkedIn sent scads of promotional messages to their contacts using the users’ names and images. (Courthouse News Service, November 14, 2014, by Julie Baker-Dennis)
The judge eliminated LinkedIn’s free speech argument that they had a right to send follow-up e-mails to help people contact each other. The judge said the e-mails clearly served a commercial purpose, LinkedIn’s purpose, and also that the e-mails misled the recipients into thinking that the users were bombarding their in-boxes with invitations to join LinkedIn. (MediaPost, November 14, 2014, by Wendy Davis)