LinkedIn suggesting I connect with my infertility doctor

Ask your doctor if they gave LinkedIn access to their contacts file. If so, it could be a HIPAA violation, which both they and LinkedIn would have to take seriously.

Possible that they mined your Dr.'s email, not yours. I assume it is possible you have fallen for LinkedIn dark pattern, but I would bet it more likely that your physician did.

They will suggest people who have looked at your profile. And I have noticed, if you have shared an IP address with - ie if you have used the wifi at your doctor’s office. I don’t think they can access your gmail - how would they do that?

I deleted my LinkedIn account a while ago hoping to never look back but unfortunately it's impossible to completely avoid it if you are in business of any kind, in any capacity. At the very least when you look up a potential hire (or a potential employer, partner, etc) you end up on their LinkedIn profile in the majority of cases. For this, I keep a zero-contact account under a different email so that I can preview people's and companies profiles.

For my online CV I settled at AngelList. Not as creepy and invasive as LinkedIn, very clean and honest UI, does the job of presenting your positions and projects just fine.

I'm following up with the Doc.'s office. Among other things, I'm also worried about "algorithms" automatically adding a "fertility treatment" risk weight to my future health insurance quotes.

Disgust at LinkedIn aside, this is a real problem for me and others who've been tricked into sharing their contact info. How do I fix this now?

When I first joined LinkedIn, it suggested all kinds of obscure connections to me, like the real estate agent I'd used two years previously, and the wife of my landlord... I had definitely not given LinkedIn my contacts, and in any event, I didn't even have my landlords wife in them. I'm assuming my info must have been inferred from info those contacts or their network had about me.

So in any case, LinkedIn is super creepy with way (and I thought I'd read they lost a lawsuit about contact mining) but the information leak may not be anything you did, but rather information that was inferred from the doctor somehow, your partner, or some higher order connection.

Great example of poor algorithmic governance.

Way back when I was still on LinkedIn they suggested I connect with a neighbor in my apartment building. The only thing we had in common was the street address. We'd never spoken. I recognized her from being around, and that she worked in the store around the corner.

What finally pushed me out was they kept suggesting I connect with people from a former employer, which employer I would prefer to just forget. I'd even taken the employer's name off my resume.

I wonder what people trying to avoid abusive spouses and other dangerous people can do. Probably have to leave LinkedIn.

How sure are you that they got the Gmail account? Is it possible that you might have used an app that tracks your location at an infertility clinic and the that information got sold to LinkedIn?

Have you searched his name in LinkedIn before? If not, there is a chance that he has searched your name for some reason.

I once heard that some dentists would check patients LinkedIn profile to estimate how much they should charge them next time. And some people are just creepily curious. They look into your online profiles for no reason.

I don't use LinkedIn's mobile app. But, if the app has permission to read your contact numbers, it could be simply that.

I've had this with people with whom my only contact was saving their phone number. AA fellows and dates. It's gross and I hate it.

LinkedIn will suggest people from the same IP address. If you accessed LI from your doctor’s office that would explain it.

LinkedIn’s least damaging usage in 2021 maybe? Zero contacts, no posts, no interactions in any form, closed to any connection. Just a bland CV, which is pretty unavoidable.

Linkedin suggested the Dr who delivered our son. In fairness we both work for the sample employer, live in the same city, and coincidentally share the same last name.

tl;dr: The recommendation is likely driven from you and the provider adding each other to a contacts app LinkedIn has been authorized to source connection data from.

The "People You May Know" feature on LinkedIn is powered by a combination of:

- network analysis (you know A, B, and C. they all know D. you may know D.)

- mining data from your mobile address book (you have A in your contacts, A has you in their contacts, you may know A.)

The recommendation likely occurred as a result of you and the provider adding each other as a contact in a contacts app each of you have authorized LinkedIn to access.

LinkedIn has been a abomination since the day it started. Creepy suggested connections, cringeworthy contrived posts and an unashamed desperate pursuit to cash in on recruitment agency money under the thin pretence of a service that on some way pretends to be useful. If they pulled the plug on it tomorrow the world would be a better place.

Pretty sure linked in saves your Gmail contacts once you login using Gmail. Similar thing happened to me too. LinkedIn is an abomination and so is it's ceo. Really surprised someone like Microsoft bought them.

Did you choose to have a Linkedin account? Did you choose to communicate using Gmail? If so, at the time you made these choices, did you consider if they were prudent, taking into account what we know about Linkedin and Google? I don’t want to assume that you were reckless, as it’s possible that you signed up many years ago, before the true nature of these companies was common knowledge. But these stories always sound to me like “I borrowed money from the Mafia and their interest rate is unreasonable. Plus, they broke my knees when I couldn’t pay. I am outraged.”