LinkedIn Soon to Settle Email Harvesting Class Action Lawsuit

On Feb. 4, LinkedIn Corp. informed the presiding California federal judge that it was almost ready to reach a deal in the ongoing email harvesting class action lawsuit. A LinkedIn class action settlement would resolve allegations that the popular, professional networking site broke into users’ accounts in order to send emails on their behalf.

According to the LinkedIn email harvesting class action lawsuit court documents filed last week, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh recently agreed to allow for a deadline extension on account of LinkedIn’s insistence that a settlement was about to be reached, thus pushing back the next email harvesting class action case meeting until March.

Both parties involved in the LinkedIn class action lawsuit are planning to file a motion for preliminary approval of an email harvesting class action settlement before the end of March. The exact proposed terms of the LinkedIn settlement were not immediately disclosed to the court by either party.

Last year, nine named plaintiffs brought this email harvesting class action lawsuit, alleging LinkedIn hacked their email contacts and other users’ emails contacts without their consent in order to expand the networking site’s service. Once the plaintiffs’ email contacts were hacked, LinkedIn allegedly sent out multiple emails on behalf of the plaintiffs and other users with the intent of promoting LinkedIn to nonmembers. The LinkedIn class action lawsuit further alleges that users have no feasible way of stopping the email blasts once they start.

However, LinkedIn pushed back, arguing that LinkedIn members allegedly consent to email harvesting when they sign up for the networking site, as they must click through several permission screens before LinkedIn can even access new users’ email accounts. Based on this and other arguments by the company, Judge Koh tossed a whole host of plaintiffs’ claims. Soon after, the plaintiffs filed an amended class action lawsuit complaint specifically addressing the LinkedIn reminder emails that inform nonmembers that someone was attempting to add them as a connection on the networking site, an alleged violation of federal laws.

In September of last year, LinkedIn attempted to dismiss the email harvesting class action lawsuit from federal court, arguing that reminder email from LinkedIn members is protected by federal law known as the Communications Decency Act (or CDA).

However, a couple months later, Judge Koh denied the company’s motion to dismiss the email harvesting class action lawsuit, stating that LinkedIn could not hide behind or claim protection under the CDA because the law only offers protection to an “interactive computer service provider,” not an information content provider like LinkedIn.

With the possibility of a LinkedIn email harvesting class action settlement on the table, these past allegations may soon be put to rest.

The plaintiffs are represented by Larry C. Russ, Dorian S. Berger and Daniel P. Hipskind of Russ August & Kabat.

The LinkedIn Email Harvesting Class Action Lawsuit is Perkins, et al. v. LinkedIn Corp., Case No. 5:13-cv-04303, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On June 11, 2015, LinkedIn informed a California federal judge that it had agreed to pay $13 million to settle the email harvesting class action lawsuit.

UPDATE 2: The LinkedIn email harvesting class action lawsuit was preliminarily approved on Sept. 15, 2015.

UPDATE 3: Details on how to file a claim for the LinkedIn Add Connections class action settlement are up! See them here.

UPDATE 4/20/16: The LinkedIn Add Connections Class Action Settlement is currently under appeal.  Claims will not be paid until all appeals are exhausted.  We appreciate your ongoing  patience. Top Class Actions will continue to provide updates as we learn more.  Keep checking back and let us know when you receive a check in the comments section below or on our  Facebook page.
UPDATE 5: On Oct. 17, 2016, Top Class Actions readers who submitted valid claims for theLinkedIn add connections class action settlementstarted receiving checks worth as much as $20.43! Congratulations to all our viewers who got PAID!