LinkedIn accused of training AI on private messages
Microsoft's IG-for-suits insists lawsuit's claims are without merit
Updated LinkedIn was this week accused of giving third parties access to Premium customers' private InMail messages for AI model training.
A lawsuit [PDF], filed on behalf of Alessandro De La Torre in a California federal court, alleges InMail messages were fed to neural networks based on LinkedIn's disclosure last year. The Microsoft-owned goliath announced policy changes reflecting its use of member posts and personal data to train AI models and its provision of said data to third-parties for that purpose.
LinkedIn exempted customers in Canada, the EU, EEA, UK, Switzerland, Hong Kong, or Mainland China from having their LinkedIn data used "to train content-generating AI models." Customers in the US, where there's still no federal privacy law, were offered a setting, enabled by default, titled: "Data for Generative AI Improvement."
LinkedIn explains, "This setting controls the training of generative AI models used to create content. When this setting is on LinkedIn and its affiliates may use your personal data and content you create on LinkedIn for that purpose."
So LinkedIn acknowledges it will use "personal data and content you create" for AI training and will offer that data to third-parties for model training. The question raised by the lawsuit is whether LinkedIn has been including the contents of private InMail messages, available to paying subscribers, as part of the personal data being shared.
The lawsuit claims, "LinkedIn breached its contractual promises by disclosing its Premium customers' private messages to third parties to train generative artificial intelligence ('AI') models. Given its role as a professional social media network, these communications include incredibly sensitive and potentially life-altering information about employment, intellectual property, compensation, and other personal matters."
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It focuses on Premium customers – those paying for Premium tier subscriptions (Premium Career, Premium Business, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter Lite) – because subscribers agreed to a separate contract, the LinkedIn Subscription Agreement (LSA), which makes specific privacy commitments not extended to non-paying LinkedIn members.
"In Section 3.2 of the LSA, LinkedIn promises not to disclose its Premium customers' confidential information to third parties," the complaint notes, alleging a violation of the US Stored Communications Act, breach of contract, and unfair competition under California law.
But the complaint offers no indication that the plaintiffs have any evidence of InMail contents being shared. Rather, the legal filing appears to assume InMail messages have been included in AI training data based on LinkedIn's alleged attempts to cover its tracks through a series of unannounced policy language changes and on the company's failure to publicly declare that it never accessed InMail contents for training.
"[T]o date, LinkedIn has never publicly denied that it disclosed the contents of its Premium customers’ InMail messages to third parties for the purpose of training generative AI models," the complaint says.
The Register asked Edelson PC, the law firm representing the plaintiff, whether anyone there has reason to believe, or evidence, that LinkedIn has actually provided private InMail messages to third-parties for AI training? Though our inquiry was acknowledged, we've not heard back.
LinkedIn denied the allegations. "These are false claims with no merit," a LinkedIn spokesperson said. ®
Updated to add on January 30
LinkedIn legal VP Sarah Wight today said the lawsuit has been withdrawn.
“Sharing the good news that a baseless lawsuit against LinkedIn was withdrawn earlier today,” said Wight.
“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.”