• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 13, 2011

LinkedIn hinted at introducing its version of social ads in announcing upcoming privacy policy updates. The online professional network said one of the planned changes would allow the company to share a user's recommendations, companies they follow and other actions within "a commercial context such as an ad."

In doing so, LinkedIn would be taking a page from Facebook, whose ads may show users which of their friends "Like" a brand or product, responded to an event invite or have taken other social actions related to a marketer or promotion. Google's new +1 program will similarly incorporate friends' endorsements into ads.

In adopting that approach, however, LinkedIn appears eager to avoid the privacy-related fiascos that Facebook has run into in the past with various initiatives or changes to the site's design or policies. To that end, LinkedIn says it will allow users to opt out of being mentioned in any social ads. "Most importantly, we do not provide your name or image back to any advertiser when that ad is served," wrote Eric Heath, director of legal-product at LinkedIn, in a June 10 blog post.

Asked Monday about the rollout of social ads on LinkedIn, a company spokesperson issued this statement: "While we haven't announced anything specifically, we are always looking for innovative ways to get the insights shared by our members in front of their professional networks. This upcoming change to the privacy policy reflects the evolving ways in which our members are using the LinkedIn platform, and it allows us to explore this area should we choose."

Those changes will also apply to the company's social sharing buttons on other sites. Starting in August, LinkedIn will let users who share articles or other content via LinkedIn plug-ins opt out of having that information sent back to LinkedIn when those pages load in their browser.

The company in April unveiled a new set of widgets that allow people to share and recommend material from around the Web with other LinkedIn members and sign in to various third-party sites with their LinkedIn ID. Earlier this month, the company added a button that enables people to apply for jobs through outside sites with information from their LinkedIn profiles.

A recent investigation by The Wall Street Journal found that social widgets on third-party sides from Facebook, Google and Twitter were collecting browsing data on their users even when they weren't clicking on the buttons. The companies said they weren't using the plug-in data to track users. Facebook and Google also said they anonymize the information so it is not tied to a specific users.

LinkedIn, which went public last month in a high-profile offering that saw its $45 stock price more than double on the first day of trading, gets about a quarter of its revenue from advertising. The rest comes from paid recruiting services and premium subscriptions.