In July 2012, LinkedIn acquired 15 key Digg patents for $4 million including a "click a button to vote up a story" patent. In June 2026, LinkedIn launched a creator marketplace that allows businesses to identify, evaluate, and connect with content creators specializing in professional and business-related topics. A company spokesperson stated that LinkedIn has always allowed users to control how their data is used and has now provided UK users with an opt-out option. The platform had quietly opted in users globally for data use in AI training. The move, according to a letter from the company's CEO Ryan Roslansky, was made to streamline the business's operations. In an email to all employees, CEO Ryan Roslansky said the cuts were due to effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic. In late July 2020, LinkedIn announced it laid off 960 employees, about 6 percent of the total workforce, from the talent acquisition and global sales teams. This also lets it train machine learning models that can infer new properties about an entity or further information that may apply to it for both summary views and analytics. LinkedIn maintains an internal knowledge graph of entities (people, organizations, groups) that helps it connect everyone working in a field or at an organization or network. In November 2013, LinkedIn announced the addition of Showcase Pages to the platform. Applications must go through a review process and request permission from the user before accessing a user's data. However, in some cases, it could refer to sanctioned applications featured on a user's profile page. LinkedIn solicits endorsements using algorithms that generate skills members might have. The project's vision was to include all the job listings in the world, all the skills required to get those jobs, all the professionals who could fill them, and all the companies (nonprofit and for-profit) at which they work. LinkedIn launched its carousel ads feature in 2018, making it the newest addition to the platform's advertising options. The blue Top Voice badge is an invitation-only, awarded by LinkedIn's editorial team to members who consistently share original professional insights and contribute meaningfully to discussions on the platform. Since 2015, LinkedIn has published annual rankings of Top Voices on the platform, recognizing "members that generated the most engagement and interaction with their posts." Such data may include the ratio of female to male employees, the percentage of the most common titles/positions held within the company, the location of the company's headquarters and offices, and a list of present and former employees. LinkedIn has discontinued native profile video, though the audio name pronunciation feature remains available. In September 2021, LinkedIn discontinued LinkedIn stories, a feature that was rolled out worldwide in October 2020. According to the company's website, LinkedIn Referrals will no longer be available after May 2018.[needs update] The feature had been launched in 2007 and allowed users to post questions to their network and allowed users to rank answers. In 2016, access to LinkedIn was blocked by Russian authorities for non-compliance with the 2015 national legislation that requires social media networks to store citizens' personal data on servers located in Russia. In February 2016 following an earnings report, LinkedIn's shares dropped 43.6% within a single day, down to $108.38 per share. The goal was to join all San Francisco-based staff (1,250 as of January 2016) in one building, bringing sales and marketing employees together with the research and development team. In April 2014, LinkedIn announced that it had leased 222 Second Street, a 26-story building under construction in San Francisco's SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of its employees, with the lease covering 10 years. Without giving its users any prior notice, Linkedin has been removing accounts that do not follow its criteria since 2022. Later in July of that year, the company removed its protections against the misgendering and deadnaming of transgender users. The German Stiftung Warentest has criticized that the balance of rights between users and LinkedIn is disproportionate, restricting users' rights excessively while granting the company far-reaching rights. Users were locked out of their accounts and threatened with permanent account deletion if they did not pay a ransom. This is followed by the demographic at 20.5%, while users between the ages of represent 15.9% of the platform. The layoffs, announced by CEO Daniel Shapero, occurred as part of a structural pivot toward AI infrastructure despite the company reporting record quarterly revenue exceeding $5 billion earlier that year. In May 2026, LinkedIn announced a reduction of its global workforce by approximately 5%, affecting roughly 875 employees across its engineering, product, and marketing divisions. In May 2017, LinkedIn sent a cease-and-desist letter to hiQ Labs, a Silicon Valley startup that collects data from public profiles and provides analysis of this data to its customers. In 2013, a class action lawsuit entitled Perkins vs. LinkedIn Corp was filed against the company, accusing it of automatically sending invitations to contacts in a member's email address book without permission. In 2022, the company ranked first in a list of brands most likely to be imitated in phishing attempts. The accounts were either fully developed personas or supporting personas. In 2014, Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) discovered that Threat Group-2889, an Iran-based group, created 25 fake LinkedIn accounts. In November 2014, LinkedIn lost a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, in a ruling that the invitations were advertisements not broadly protected by free speech rights that would otherwise permit use of people's names and images without authorization. The sign-up process includes users entering their email password (there is an opt-out feature). If there is no response, the answer will be repeated several times ("You have not yet answered XY's invitation.") LinkedIn was sued in the United States on charges of hijacking e-mail accounts and spamming. In May 2026, LinkedIn introduced an agency certification initiative intended to help advertisers identify firms with experience using the platform's advertising and campaign tools. From 2015, most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals; LinkedIn also introduced its own ad portal named LinkedIn Ads to let companies advertise in its platform. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, as it allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post their job listings. We regularly update our app to fix bugs, improve performance and add new features to help you connect with your professional network and advance your career.
