LinkedIn Now Tracks You Across The Web [And Flaunts It]

LinkedIn LogoWe know companies track us across the web, but most companies don’t make the tracking obvious.

LinkedIn, in quite a departure, is showing right on the homepage the company websites you have visited.

The video below is a short screen capture showing how Eloqua and Demandbase were added to the recently viewed block on my homepage after visiting their websites, not just LinkedIn company pages.

Although tracking isn’t unusual, most companies don’t make tracking nearly this obvious and it raises a number of questions for LinkedIn users and for B2B marketers:

  • How will LinkedIn’s audience react when tracking is this visible? Will LinkedIn have a privacy backlash similar to what Facebook has faced at times in the past?
  • Will LinkedIn allow this information to be used by advertisers? For instance, will you be able to target companies that have visited your site (retargeting) or even target companies, including competitors, as an interest in the advertising platform?
  • Will LinkedIn use this information to refine the companies to follow suggestions, boosting company following and increasing the value of corporate social media activity on LinkedIn?
  • What is LinkedIn tracking, and what are they not tracking? This isn’t showing every website. Both sites that loaded include the company follow button. But is LinkedIn tracking you, just not linking it to a specific company page in order to display it, regardless?

Update: LinkedIn disabled this, visits to sites with the LinkedIn Follow button and visits to company pages no longer appear on the Recently Visited homepage widget.

Your Turn

How do you feel about what LinkedIn is doing and how do you believe the LinkedIn audience will react? Share your view in the comments below or with me on Twitter (@wittlake).

Note: the original video was approximately 3 minutes uncut. The video was edited for length and clarity. Company pages were not visited prior to or doing the video.

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