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Ask HN: Can a website take your public profile and create accounts with it?

10 points by hysan ↗ HN
I received some unwanted spam today from a job marketplace website stating that they found my profile on LinkedIn and "conveniently" created an account for me on their website with X login and Y password. I've received a lot of recruiter and job marketplace spam before, but none have ever took my public information and created a public profile representing me without my consent.

My concerns are that they are:

1. representing me as someone who is available for work on their platform; worse if someone emails me directly with information taken from their website

2. potentially will treat me as just another platform user and begin spamming me without recourse other than me clicking on a link in an email which they would use as acknowledgement of me being on their platform

Is this legal?

I'm sure others have had to deal with this. How did you proceed?

So far, I've forwarded the email to the FTC per their spam guidelines as well as the host, GoDaddy, per their abuse reporting guidelines. I'm wondering if there is anything else I should do.

3 comments

[ 6.5 ms ] story [ 22.3 ms ] thread
codegeek
Legal or not, you can email them and ask them to remove the profile since you do not consent to such representation.

If they don't listen, then do a more formal DMCA takedown request.

huehehue
Zuckerberg's recent testimony indicates FB does something similar with "shadow profiles". Those "people finder" and genealogy sites have also been doing this for years. My _guess_ is that it's not explicitly illegal so it's fine unless you break some other law(s) in the process (acquiring data illegally, defamatory profiles, etc.).
jobigoud
Don't know if it's legal but LinkedIn, Google and others do it all the time for businesses. Then you have to go on their platform and "claim" the business as an owner.