LINKEDIN STOPS SELL HACK PLUGIN FROM REVEALING EMAIL ADDRESSES

Browser plugin Sell Hack has suspended functionality to reveal LinkedIn members’ email addresses after the professional networking firm issued a cease-and-desist order.

The plugin, which is available for Safari, Firefox and Chrome, features a Hack In button designed to help salespeople uncover hidden email addresses on social profiles.

“Anytime you go to a Social profile page, you’ll see a Hack In button. If you click the button, we’ll start to run the profile against our data sources,” explains the Sell Hackwebsite.

Despite Sell Hack claims that all data is publicly available and that it was not doing anything malicious, LinkedIn decided to take legal action.

The professional networking firm has been quick to take action on privacy issues since stolen passwords were revealed after a data breach in June 2012 that cost more than $1m to investigate and remediate.