Microsoft’s LinkedIn is being sued by its Premium customers who claim that the social media platform gave their personal messages to third parties without permission to train generative AI models.
Millions of LinkedIn Premium customers, who pay for extra services on the website, will be represented in the class action lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
Last August, LinkedIn introduced a privacy policy that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data in a quite update.
However, on September 18, users claim that LinkedIn quietly updated its terms saying that data could be used to train AI models, and that opting out of any future training does not affect training that had already taken place.
The complaint said that LinkedIn tired to “cover its tracks,” alleging the company was “fully aware” that it was violating customer’s data protection rights and privacy.
The lawsuit, filed in California, is on behalf of all LinkedIn Premium customers whose private data was disclosed to third parties for AI training, and those who sent or received InMail messages, on or before September 18.
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The lawsuit seeks $1,000 per person for violations of the Stores Communications Act, a federal law, as well as an unspecified amount for breaching the contract of California’s unfair competition law.
Microsoft has yet to issue an official response to the lawsuit.





