“Would you like to join my professional network on LinkedIn”? The seemingly innocuous email subject line has cost LinkedIn millions.In a class-action lawsuit, the California-based social networking site LinkedIn must pay $13 million to users who accuse the site of sending unsolicited emails to their contacts. The 2013 lawsuit was launched by a user angered by the fact that the company was spamming his email contact list with requests to join and connect with others on the network. The main issue was LinkedIn’s “add connections” feature, which lets users import their personal contacts into the social network. The lawsuit alleged that "LinkedIn intentionally and knowingly created and developed this deceptive advertising scheme to improperly use the names, photographs, likenesses, and identities of plaintiffs for the purpose of generating substantial profits.”Also, the suit complained that: “Despite the appearance of the endorsement emails, the users do not compose the message, they do not consent to LinkedIn sending multiple messages on their behalf, and they are not compensated for the use of their name or likeness in the advertising or promotion of LinkedIn.”On LinkedIn, if you want to add someone to your contacts, the site will send the desired contact a request to join on your behalf. This “add connections” feature functioned in a way that if a recipient did not reply to those emails, LinkedIn followed them up with two more invitations to join the site.The two additional emails is where the company veered from acceptable communication and found itself in violation of new privacy laws that punish those who send unsolicited emails.While the emails are a source of frustration for the recipients, the “senders” – the users in whose name the emails were sent – led the lawsuit. There were two grounds for complaint: while those users may have given permission for the initial invitation to be sent out, they did not give explicit consent for the following two messages or for their name and image to be used in them.LinkedIn does not admit to any wrongdoing, but has agreed to pay $13 million in restitution. The company claims that it has already contacted everyone in the class action, but others are able to include themselves in the class action suit. The deadline is December 14, 2015.The company says any user of the Add Connections feature betweenSept. 17, 2011, and Oct.31, 2014, is eligible to part of the payout, to a maximum of $1500 per person. According to the law firm directing the settlement, payouts are not limited to U.S. residents. However, the lawyers handling the case say that depending on the number of claims, the amount users will receive on a per-person payout could be as low as $10. The form is available here. http://www.addconnectionssettlement.com/ This article was written by Joanne Chun. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Sylvain Kalache