LinkedIn (Microsoft) Terms of Service & Privacy Policy
LinkedIn (Microsoft)
Below Average
Based on a complete review of both the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, LinkedIn collects a vast amount of data, uses it extensively for personalization, advertising, and AI training, and retains broad rights over user-generated content. While offering some user controls, the terms lean heavily in the company's favor, particularly regarding data use and dispute resolution.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement
Profile & Identity Data
Name, email/mobile, general location, password, professional profile details (education, work experience, skills, photo, city, endorsements, optional verifications like identity or workplace). Also, sensitive information if you choose to include it.
Content & Interaction Data
Information you provide, post, or upload (forms, surveys, resumes, job applications, calendar meeting info if synced). This includes articles, posts, comments, videos, messages, and social actions (likes, follows, shares).
Usage & Technical Data
Logs of your visits and use of services (sites, apps, platform technology), content/ad views/clicks, searches, app installs/updates, shared articles, job applications. Includes log-ins, cookies, device information (IP address, proxy server, OS, browser, device ID), and internet service provider.
Location Data
Data about your location based on phone settings. Precise location (GPS) is collected only if you opt-in.
Third-Party & Inferred Data
Content and news about you posted by others, contact/calendar info from others' syncs, email header info if synced. Data from partners (e.g., job title, work email from employers/ATS). Data from LinkedIn Affiliates (e.g., Microsoft apps/services engagement). Information about your visits and interactions with other services that include LinkedIn plugins, ads, or cookies, or when you log in with LinkedIn. Inferences about your age, gender, interests, and compensation bracket based on collected data.
Workplace/School Provided Information
If your employer or school buys a premium service for you, they provide LinkedIn with personal data about you and your eligibility.
Service Provision & Personalization
Use data to provide, support, personalize, and develop services. This includes authorizing access, helping you connect with others, suggesting connections, personalizing content, recommending skills, and notifying your network of your activities.
AI Development & Content Generation
Use your data to develop and train artificial intelligence (AI) models, and to develop, provide, and personalize services, and gain insights with the help of AI, automated systems, and inferences. This includes generating content for you and others.
Career & Job Matching
Use your data to help you explore careers, evaluate educational opportunities, and be found for job opportunities. This includes recommending jobs to you and showing your profile to recruiters.
Premium Services & Employer Access
For premium services (e.g., Recruiter, Sales Navigator), customers can search and contact members, export limited profile information, and store data about you. Your employer can review and manage your use of such services. LinkedIn will ask for permission to share relevant data from your profile or non-enterprise services with your employer for these tools.
Communications
Contact you via email, mobile, in-app notices, and messages about service availability, security, usage tips, network updates, job suggestions, and promotions. They also enable communications between members.
Targeted Advertising
Serve tailored ads on and off LinkedIn using data from advertising technologies (pixels, ad tags, cookies), your profile, service usage, advertising partners, and inferred information. Your social actions on sponsored content may be visible with ads.
Marketing & Promotion
Use member data and content for invitations and communications promoting membership, network growth, engagement, and their services.
Research & Development
Conduct research and development to improve services, drive membership growth, and connect professionals. Also research social, economic, and workplace trends, sometimes with third parties, and may make public data available to researchers.
Customer Support
Use data, including your communications, to investigate, respond to, and resolve complaints and service issues.
Anonymized Insights
Generate statistics and insights that do not identify you, such as about members' professions, industries, ad impressions, post engagement, and workforce demographics.
Security & Legal Compliance
Use your data (including communications) for security, fraud prevention, investigations, and to comply with legal obligations, subpoenas, or government requests.
Data Sharing with Affiliates
Share your personal data with LinkedIn Affiliates (e.g., Microsoft) to provide and develop services, including publicly-shared content for their services and personal data to improve their advertising services.
Content License
HIGH RISK“You grant LinkedIn and our Affiliates the following non-exclusive license to the content and other information you provide... A worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publicly perform and display, host, and process your content and other information without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others.”
This means: You give LinkedIn a very broad, permanent right to use, copy, change, distribute, and display anything you post or submit to their services, anywhere in the world, and they don't have to pay you or ask for your permission again. This includes the right to let others use it too. While there are some limits (like not using it in third-party ads without consent, and honoring your audience settings), it's still a significant grant of rights.
No Obligation to Store Content
MEDIUM RISK“You agree that we have no obligation to store, maintain or provide you a copy of any content or other information that you or others provide, except to the extent required by applicable law and as noted in our Privacy Policy.”
This means: LinkedIn is not a storage service. They don't promise to keep your content or give you a copy of it, unless a specific law requires them to.
Disclaimer of Warranty
LOW RISK“LINKEDIN AND ITS AFFILIATES MAKE NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY ABOUT THE SERVICES, INCLUDING ANY REPRESENTATION THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, AND PROVIDE THE SERVICES (INCLUDING CONTENT, OUTPUT AND INFORMATION) ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS.”
This means: LinkedIn doesn't promise that its services will always work perfectly, without interruptions or errors. They provide everything 'as is,' meaning they aren't making any guarantees about quality or reliability.
Limitation of Liability
HIGH RISK“TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW... LINKEDIN AND ITS AFFILIATES, WILL NOT BE LIABLE IN CONNECTION WITH THIS CONTRACT FOR LOST PROFITS OR LOST BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, REPUTATION... LOSS OF DATA... OR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES. LINKEDIN AND ITS AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU IN CONNECTION WITH THIS CONTRACT FOR ANY AMOUNT THAT EXCEEDS (A) THE TOTAL FEES PAID OR PAYABLE BY YOU TO LINKEDIN FOR THE SERVICES DURING THE TERM OF THIS CONTRACT, IF ANY, OR (B) US $1000.”
This means: LinkedIn severely limits its financial responsibility to you. They won't be liable for things like lost profits, damage to your reputation, or lost data. If they are found liable, the maximum they will pay is either the total fees you paid them for services or $1000, whichever is less. This is standard for many online services but places significant risk on the user.
Dispute Resolution & Governing Law
HIGH RISK“If you reside outside of Designated Countries... the laws of the State of California, U.S.A., excluding its conflict of laws rules, shall exclusively govern any dispute... You and LinkedIn both agree that all claims and disputes can be litigated only in the federal or state courts in Santa Clara County, California, USA...”
This means: If you live outside of the EU/EEA/Switzerland, any legal disputes with LinkedIn must be handled under California law and exclusively in courts located in Santa Clara County, California. This makes it very difficult for users outside that specific region to pursue legal action.
Assignment of Contract
LOW RISK“You may not assign or transfer this Contract... to anyone without our consent. However, you agree that LinkedIn may assign this Contract to its affiliates or a party that buys it without your consent.”
This means: You can't transfer your agreement with LinkedIn to someone else without their permission. But LinkedIn can transfer their side of the agreement to their related companies or to a company that buys them, without needing your approval.
Delete your account
You can close your account at any time through the Help Center. Your personal data will generally stop being visible to others within 24 hours.
Data retention
LinkedIn generally deletes closed account information within 30 days. However, they retain data if necessary for legal obligations (including law enforcement requests), regulatory requirements, dispute resolution, security, fraud prevention, or to enforce their User Agreement. Information you shared with others (e.g., messages, group posts) will remain visible, and your profile may persist in third-party search tools until their caches refresh. De-personalized information may be retained indefinitely.
Data portability
You can ask LinkedIn for a copy of your personal data and a copy of data you provided in a machine-readable format.
Broad Content License (TOS 3.1)
This clause gives LinkedIn extensive, perpetual rights to use, modify, and sublicense your content (posts, photos, videos, etc.) without further compensation. While common for user-generated content platforms, the 'sublicensable' and 'without compensation' aspects mean your creative work can be leveraged by LinkedIn and its partners in many ways you might not expect or approve of.
Industry context: This is a broad license, but similar grants are common in social media and content platforms. The specific wording 'sublicensable' and 'without compensation' is standard but still leans heavily in the company's favor.
Extensive Data Collection & Inferences (PP 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.8, 2.4)
LinkedIn collects a vast amount of data, not just what you provide, but also from your off-site activities, third-party partners, and through inferences (like your age, gender, interests, and even compensation bracket). This means they build a very detailed profile of you, often without your direct input, which can be used for highly targeted advertising and other purposes.
Industry context: While extensive data collection is standard for large social networks, the explicit mention of inferences about sensitive data like 'compensation bracket' and the broad scope of off-site tracking is more aggressive than some competitors.
AI Model Training with User Data (PP 2.0)
LinkedIn explicitly states they use your data to 'develop and train artificial intelligence (AI) models' and 'generate content for you and others.' This means your professional profile, posts, and interactions are directly contributing to the development of AI systems, the full implications of which are still emerging. While they mention responsible AI principles, the direct use of user data for this purpose is significant.
Industry context: This is a rapidly evolving area. While many tech companies use data for AI, explicitly stating the use of user data for 'training AI models' and 'generating content' is a newer and more direct acknowledgment, which some users may find concerning.
Restrictive Dispute Resolution (TOS 6)
For users outside the EU/EEA/Switzerland, all legal disputes must be resolved under California law in Santa Clara County, California. This creates a significant barrier for users in other states or countries to seek legal recourse, as it requires navigating a foreign legal system and potentially traveling to a specific location.
Industry context: This is a common practice for large global tech companies to centralize legal disputes, but it is highly unfavorable to the average user and is considered a high risk for a global service.
Data Retention After Account Closure (PP 4.3)
While your profile generally becomes invisible quickly, LinkedIn retains some of your data for longer than 30 days for various reasons, including legal obligations, fraud prevention, and enforcement of their User Agreement. Crucially, content you shared with others (messages, group posts) remains visible, and your profile might still appear in third-party search engines. This means you don't have full control over your digital footprint even after leaving the service.
Industry context: Retention for legal compliance and fraud prevention is standard. However, the explicit mention that shared content remains visible and third-party caches are beyond their control is a common but important limitation on user data control.
LinkedIn's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy outline a comprehensive data collection and usage strategy, including for AI training, that prioritizes the company's business interests. While they offer some controls over your data and communications, your content license is broad, and your ability to seek legal redress is limited by specific jurisdiction clauses. Be aware that your data contributes to their AI development and that shared content may persist even after you close your account. Always consider what you share on the platform and review your privacy settings. Consult a qualified attorney for legal advice.
Want to analyze a different service? Analyze any TOS →