Keeping Tabs On LinkedIn Tabs

Did you know that LinkedIn restricts accounts for too many profile views? I've seen many people get locked out of their LinkedIn accounts for days, weeks, and even months...simply because they viewed more profiles than LinkedIn thought they should.

And there's no clear limit on the number you can view. But it does seem to be triggered when you open a lot of tabs with different profiles. By "a lot" I mean at least 30 or more tabs at a time. So far, I haven't gotten in trouble for having 10-20 tabs open at a time. But I am careful. 

Ever wonder why LinkedIn limits profile views?

I think it all stems from LinkedIn's efforts to protect their turf.

They are deadly serious about it. LinkedIn sued Hiq labs for data scraping and pursued that case all the way up to the Supreme Court, which referred the case back down to the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals.

The Appeals court just recently issued their decision, upholding their prior ruling and allowing data scraping from publicly accessible websites.

LinkedIn isn't done fighting this. I'd expect them to crack down even harder trying to prevent logged-in data scraping (which the court did not permit).

So use caution in opening a lot of profiles in a lot of tabs. At this time, that behavior seems to trigger the algorithm and can get your account restricted. Repeat offenses can get you permanently banned.

Here's what LinkedIn had to say about the Appeals court decision:

“We’re disappointed in the court’s decision. This is a preliminary ruling and the case is far from over,” said LinkedIn spokesperson Greg Snapper in a statement. “We will continue to fight to protect our members’ ability to control the information they make available on LinkedIn. When your data is taken without permission and used in ways you haven’t agreed to, that’s not okay. On LinkedIn, our members trust us with their information, which is why we prohibit unauthorized scraping on our platform.”

I'm not naïve enough to believe that LinkedIn is actually trying to protect members. It's protecting its competitive advantage. It's LinkedIn's playground, so they get to make the rules.

Protect yourself and your business by limiting the number of profiles you have open at any one time.

For other tips on how to stay out of LinkedIn Jail, check out this post.