Analysis of linkedin privacy settings: Are they sufficient, insufficient or just unknown?

Internet-based applications give users an easy way to communicate with each other on a scale and rate unseen in traditional media. Among them, the professional social networking sites (with LinkedIn as one the most widespread platforms) offer a useful way to create and maintain a professional contact network. LinkedIn is also a self-promotion tool, where employees, industries and communities get in touch. In this scenario, it seems logical to consider privacy as a fundamental subject. Controlling who can see our data may avoid that our information reaches our boss when we are looking for a job, a competitor, or even former or present work colleagues with whom we have had some conflict. This work analyzes deeply the privacy settings offered by LinkedIn, and also analyzes the privacy concerns among the users, examining how these concerns correlate to the knowledge of the privacy settings and the adequacy of their use. Copyright © 2014 SCITEPRESS.