Written by Jonathan Stemple
(Reuters) – Microsoft's LinkedIn has been sued by Premium customers who say the business-focused social media platform exposed their private messages to third parties without permission to train its generative artificial intelligence models.
According to the proposed class action lawsuit filed Tuesday night on behalf of millions of LinkedIn Premium customers, LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting last August that allows users to enable or disable sharing of their personal data.
LinkedIn then updated its privacy policy on September 18 to say the data could be used to train AI models, the customers said, and in a “Frequently Asked Questions” hyperlink said opting out “does not affect training that has already taken place.”
This attempt to “cover its tracks” suggests that LinkedIn was fully aware that it violated customer privacy and its promise to use personal data only to support and improve its platform, in order to minimize public scrutiny and legal ramifications, the complaint said.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Jose, California on behalf of LinkedIn Premium customers who sent or received InMail messages, and whose private information was disclosed to third parties for AI training before September 18.
It is seeking unspecified damages for breach of contract and violations of California's unfair competition law, and $1,000 per person for violations of the federal Stored Communications Act.
“These are false and baseless allegations,” LinkedIn said in a statement.
The plaintiffs' attorney had no immediate additional comment.
The lawsuit was filed several hours after US President Donald Trump announced a joint venture between Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Oracle (NYSE:) and SoftBank (TYO:), with potential investments of $500 billion, to build AI infrastructure in the US.
The case is De La Torre v. LinkedIn Corp, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 25-00709.
