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LinkedIn customer email lawsuit given OK by court

A class-action lawsuit against LinkedIn over its email marketing practices got the go-ahead Thursday to move forward from a federal court judge, according to a Bloomberg report.

The suit accuses LinkedIn of violating federal and state laws when it downloads email addresses from its members external email addresses then sends multiple emails allegedly from them — without their permission — hawking the social media site to non-members.

U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh, in San Jose, Calif., said, “LinkedIn's repeated ‘endorsement emails' could injure users' reputations” since contacts might think the users “are the types of people who spam their contacts or are unable to take the hint that their contacts do not want to join their LinkedIn network.”

Based on California law, “individuals' names have economic value” when used “to endorse or advertise a product to the individuals' friends and contacts,” Koh said.

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