LinkedIn shouldn’t ask for money from users who want to see profile visits, complaint says
Many corporate workers across the US, the EU, and elsewhere have long been paying close to $30 per month for LinkedIn Premium, a membership that lets them see who has visited their profiles. In a new complaint, a non-profit says this sort of tracking might not be legal – and even if it is, the data should be available to users for free.
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Many corporate workers across the US, the EU, and elsewhere have long been paying close to $30 per month for LinkedIn Premium, a membership that lets them see who has visited their profiles. In a new complaint, a non-profit says this sort of tracking might not be legal – and even if it is, the data should be available to users for free.
Already back in October 2024, LinkedIn was hit with a €310 million ($362 million) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) penalty after Ireland’s data protection watchdog found several breaches in relation to its processing of user data for behavioral advertising.
This time, noyb, a Vienna-based privacy rights group, is targeting something bigger: LinkedIn Premium’s most enticing feature, allowing users to see who’s been checking them out over a period of time.
With monthly prices ranging from $29.99 to $170, LinkedIn Premium doesn’t come cheap. Still, many users rave about its value.
However, noyb says that users – at least those who are EU citizens – should be able to request such information and receive it free of charge under the bloc’s GDPR.
The data protection law indeed provides Europeans with a suite of rights over their personal information, including a right of access (Article 15), which allows them to obtain a copy of their data on request.
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, however, provides profile viewership information to users who pay for its premium tier. The professional social network denies data access requests made by non-paying users.
“It is absurd that companies only seem to recognize the importance of data protection when they want to sell data,” Martin Baumann, data protection lawyer at noyb, said.
“Selling data to its own users is a popular practice among companies. In reality, however, people have the right to receive their own data free of charge.”
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The organization has lodged a complaint (PDF) with the Austrian Data Protection Authority on behalf of a LinkedIn user and is demanding a full response to his access request.
Furthermore, noyb is proposing that a fine be imposed to prevent similar breaches in the future. Fines under the EU privacy law can reach up to 4% of global annual turnover.
The rights group is also sending a helpful reminder that the GDPR sets out various rights enabling users to access and amend their data – even if companies often continue to charge a fee for this.
In 2024, for example, noyb filed a complaint against the creditors’ association KSV1870, which urged people to purchase a high-priced “InfoPass” rather than receive a free copy of their data.
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