Skip to main content

Linkedin Email Address Revealer - Sell Hack taken down

Recently, Sell Hack, a browser plugin for the Google Chrome browser made quite a noise in the social networking arena. The email addresses of LinkedIn users was easily exposed via this web browser add-on tool. Made available as free extension for the Chrome browser, all one had to do was to download the plugin and install it on his/her machine and click “Hack In” button, popping up on LinkedIn profiles. And, with the click of a button, one could view the email address associated with the account, even if the account’s not a connected one.



The plugin, thus exposed email addresses of all the LinkedIn users, leading to the issues of emails being flooded with spams. LikedIn intended to take legal action over the plug-in and also advised the users to uninstall the plugin. The Sell Hack team however was trying to maintain integrity all the while. They defended themselves saying the tool was created for marketing professionals and argued that all the data pulled for making email addresses were already publicly visible.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn responded saying, “We are doing everything we can to shut Sell Hack down. On March 31, LinkedIn’s legal team has delivered Sell Hack a cease and desist letter as a result of several violations.” They also added, “The members should “use caution” before downloading any third-party extension or app.”

However, as of now, the need for legal actions are all but over after the Sell Hack team has taken down the “Hack In” tool. This was confirmed in a blog post on Tuesday, in which Sell Hack wrote that the plug-in will no longer work with the LinkedIn pages. They also confirmed that they had a cease and desist letter delivered by LinkedIn, on March 31. Surprisingly, the case might not be closed forever as it looks. Sell Hack has said they are working on better things. However, they have assured that the product will not conflict with LinkedIn’s terms of service.

What do you think of this amazing story? Do you think there will be more of such “Hack Ins” in future? Leave your thoughts as comments below.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SMEs account for majority of the 2 Million Active Facebook Advertisers

Earlier this week, the social media giant Facebook announced that it has crossed over two million active advertisers on its platform. Interestingly, further insights in the results reveal that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) form majority of those 2 million active advertisers on Facebook. As reported by the Reuters , more than 30 million small business owners have Facebook pages and the two million active advertisers (those that have placed an ad on the social media platform in the last 30 days) consists mainly of small- and medium-sized business owners. It’s not surprising that Facebook is of great value and an important marketing tool for small businesses. With significant decrease in Facebook’s organic reach in past year it can also be implied that businesses are bound to advertise to reach their audience. And with massive presence of small businesses on the platform, it can be expected that Facebook advertising among the small businesses will continue to grow. Moreover, Facebo...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to get 25 GB of free Dropbox space?

If you are a Vodafone customer, here’s how you can get 25 GB of free Dropbox space! Vodafone, in order to make it Backup+ service attractive will offer 25 GB free Dropbox space to its customers for their first year of the service. The carrier and Dropbox announced their partnership today appealing mobile customers for safe and secure data storage. The exclusive service, available only for Vodafone customers, is expected to begin by the end of March 2015 in most of the Vodafone markets. Announcing their partnership, Vodafone notes that the Backup+ service will give their customers an easy and secure way to keep their mobile data safe with a Dropbox account. Dropbox also emphasizes their easy storage service by adding the proposition that it will simplify the process of switching phones for Vodafone users. The service, however, is only free for a year. Wouldn’t it be awesome if it were free as long as you had the contract for? How to claim your 25 GB free Dropbox Space? A comp...
Post a Comment
Read more

Facebook Advertising now mobile with Ads Manager App

After crossing two million active advertisers on its platform, Facebook has now released its ads manager app to make advertising much easier.  The company made the announcement of the app on its business page shortly after the app was available to download on the Apple app store today. Features of Facebook Ads Manager App Facebook claims to provide marketers with more power to manage ads on the go with its mobile app. Among several features of the app, advertisers can create and edit ads, view ads performance, get notifications about their ads, and keep track of their spending on the platform. Here is the list of features highlighted by Facebook for its app. Track ad performance Edit existing ads Edit ad budgets and schedules Receive push notifications Create ads   How to Download Facebook Ads Manager App? Facebook ads manager app is only available in the US until now and will be soon available worldwide, according to the company. Facebook also mentioned that it is working o...
Post a Comment
Read more