LinkedIn used 18 million email addresses to target non-members on Facebook.

Hi [FACEBOOK USER] I'd like to add you to my professional network.

LINKEDIN HAS RECEIVED a small slap on the wrist from Ireland's Data Protection Commission (IDPC) over its usage of 18 million email addresses belonging to non-members of the world's biggest humblebrag website.

The report (PDF) doesn't explain how LinkedIn got hold of the 18 million email addresses but does explain what the company used them for: advertising the shirt-and-tie social network on its tee-shirt-and-jeans cousin Facebook. The company used a hashed form of the email addresses to target users of Facebook "with the absence of instruction from the data controller as is required."

In this instance, the data controller would be LinkedIn Ireland. Like many other companies in the build-up to GDPR becoming law, LinkedIn moved its data processing operation to the USA in order to "streamline" operations.

By Alan Martin.

Full story at The Inquirer.