tl;dr - they're running a massive, global, and illegal spying operation.
I was doomscrolling youtube when I came across a video by LaserHelix (sick name btw) speaking on data published by browsergate.eu that explains how LinkedIn deploys sneaky scans for over 6,000+ chrome browser extensions. Only Chrome, by the way.
LinkedIn also collects 48 other characteristics including your local IP via WebRTC, connected cameras/microphones, CPU cores, device RAM, canvas fingerprint, WebGL data, installed fonts, battery level, and even your Do Not Track setting — which they record but then exclude from their own hash, and keep tracking you without consent (big eu legal moment)
The entire process happens in the background. There is no consent dialog, no notification, no mention of it in LinkedIn’s privacy policy.
Even more, the way LinkedIn goes about this is incredibly secretive; staggering network requests, hidden iframes, and encrypted payloads. Even if a user were to inspect their network requests, the contents are made unreadable. They don't want you to know what they've taken from you.
Back to the extensions, this hardcoded list of 6,222 extensions LinkedIn scans for includes those of the political, religious, sales, security, disability genres and more. All of these tidbits of information seem inconsequential, until paired with the freely given data from over 1.2 billion people and 67 million companies.
It knows that person’s name, employer, job title, department, location, and professional network.
On an anonymous platform, that breach is at least limited by the anonymity. On LinkedIn, the same data point is attached to a verified identity. Of us, of our businesses, of our competitors. Which tools are they using for security, for sales?
LinkedIn has built a system that extracts customer lists from 6,222 software companies simultaneously, without asking, and transmitting it through an encrypted, covert detection system to its own servers. Oh and they share it with HUMAN Security (PerimeterX), Merchant Pool, and Google. Pretty seedy.
Anyway check out browsergate.eu for the gritty details, and big props to Fairlinked for exposing Microsoft's dirty tricks. See ya.