LinkedIn OKs Settlement Over Nuisance Email; Notifies Its Users Via ...

If you were the subject of a class-action lawsuit over your habit of cluttering your users' inboxes with nuisance emails, well, perhaps you might find another mode of communication to notify them that they might be eligible for a payout in aforementioned lawsuit. Not so LinkedIn, which sent out just such an electronic missive Friday, detailing the $13 million it is doling out over its Add Connections service, which let users import their contacts and invite them to sign up for LinkedIn—then helpfully sent those contacts not one, but two follow-up emails, in the original user's name. A class-action lawsuit successfully claimed that users had not agreed to those follow-up emails in agreeing to the service.

Users accustomed to LinkedIn's frequent missives were hopefully paying attention on Friday, notes Quartz, so they can claim their piece of the pie. The settlement affects emails sent between Sept. 17, 2011 and Oct. 31, 2014, but users have to swear under penalty of perjury that they were affected. That means, writes Adario Strange at Mashable, that "if you're just annoyed by LinkedIn emails, but aren’t sure if you used Add Connections yourself, you may want to check before you submit your claim for a slice of the payout." Users have until Dec. 14 to make a claim. (More LinkedIn stories.)