• Computerworld, Friday, August 12, 2011 11:17 AM

Faced with mounting criticism over using members' names and photographs in ads, LinkedIn has agreed to alter its recently launched "social advertising" feature. In a blog post, LinkedIn said it has been "listening" to user complaints, and "could have communicated" its intentions with the new ad feature more clearly.

"As a result, it said, it will change how the advertisements appear," Computerworld writes. "If a LinkedIn user 'follows' a company or service on LinkedIn, the ad feature can display the user's name and photo in advertisements for that company." LinkedIn said its goal was to deliver more useful ads, but some LinkedIn users complained it was a privacy violation, especially because they have to opt out of the feature rather than opt in.

"In the changes announced Thursday, it appears that users will still need to opt out of the social ads feature, but LinkedIn has made it so people's names and photographs no longer appear," Computerworld adds. "Instead, there is a link in the advertisements that says, for example, 'Three people in your network' follow company X."

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