by I used to be a big LinkedIn fan as recently as November 7, 2008. As of a few moments ago, I now loathe LinkedIn. Here’s why: LinkedIn deleted my profile image because the image was not an image of me. It was an image of my business logo. Here’s their removal letter that just hit my Inbox:
I couldn’t believe what I was reading — that LinkedIn image policy is idiotic, dangerous and actually anti-business — but, sure enough to my weeping eyes, this is what I found when I visited my LinkedIn profile: No image!
Here is the craven image LinkedIn removed without notice. It is the “B.U.” logo for my “Boles University” company:
Here is the text of the letter I just shotgunned back to the LinkedIn Idiots:
Dear LinkedIn Customer Service —I am writing to protest your removal of the image attached to my profile. You didn’t give me fair warning. You just removed the image. That’s no way to run a business or treat a paying customer.
I am a paid member of your service. My image was my company logo.
I do not understand or condone the requirement to place an actual image of the person on your LinkedIn profile and I do not comprehend how you are policing that the “face attached to a profile” actually belongs to the person.
The “your face or nothing” requirement is clearly unenforceable and untenable on your end — unless, of course, you decide as in my case to discriminate against non-facial images.
Because of your hasty reaction — I have had death threats on the internet and I’m not interested in helping provide my hopeful killers a blueprint of how to recognize me offline — I have deleted the three groups I started on your service; I have removed LinkedIn links from my 13 websites and 11 blogs and my email signature; I have made all of my profile private.
I am asking for a refund of the remainder of the $199.95USD monies I paid to have an business account.
By removing my image you instantly made your service less desirable and more repressive and I no longer want to pay for that humiliation.
I am also in the process of recanting my support of your service as evidenced in this review:
http://urbansemiotic.com/2008/11/07/linkedin-creates-circles/
Please reply to confirm the amount you have returned for the remainder of my paid subscription and that you have also successfully cancelled any and all possible renewal of my paid subscription on your end in the future.
David W. Boles
http://BolesUniversity.com
As a record of my determination, here is the proof of my deletion of the popular “American Sign Language” group I created:
Here’s the evidence of the deletion of the “Dramatic Writing” group I created:
Here is the confirmed deletion of the “David Boles” networking group I created for the 14 other “David Boles” people on LinkedIn:
I removed the LinkedIn buttons for all Authors on the Boles Blogs Network Author Pages.
I liked LinkedIn a lot, but now I realize it isn’t the right company for me to help promote.
I guess now I’m stuck with Twitter for all my business networking needs.
Wow. That seems like a silly thing for them to do – require a face.
Right, Gordon! No warning. No way to appeal the decision. They just cut off your brand and leave you for dead. Some company. Certainly not my sort of place to hang — especially when at least 50% of current LinkedIn users aren’t following their silly “face only” mandate anyway! You can’t enforce a rule on only some of the people some of the time.
I’d love to know how they decide if a face is appropriate or not.
Must there be a full face? If you stand in the woods and have a full length shot: Acceptable or not?
Your kids’ face appear with your face: Acceptable or not?
Half your face shows: Acceptable or not?
A cartoon of your face: Acceptable or not?
A charcoal drawing of your face: Acceptable or not?
Must your face be in color?
If the image is blurry: Acceptable or not?
How do they even know the face you pick is your own? They cannot — which is why their entire policy is foolish, foolhardy and fake!
I’m so hoping for a “Charles Manson Day” photo protest on LinkedIn where everyone changes their “photo” to that of the death row killer for a day to teach them a valuable lesson: The Customer Is Always Right!
Hmmm. I’d participate!
Heh! I think we’re about to go viral, Gordon! SMILE!
Interesting David, that’s not a good example of customer service – did they reply to you?
Hi Katha!
They replied that they would refund the remaining amount of my paid subscription — it has yet to appear on my credit card — and then admonished me again with a list of “acceptable” avatars on their service. So nasty! So unnecessary!
Clearly removing your logo was hasty by linkedin. But I bet you could have worked it out with them instead of pulling the plug. Your post doesn’t say that you tried, but it was quite detailed in over-justifying why they shouldn’t have removed your logo. I think we all get that. The fact that you were a uber-user, etc. Maybe they should have known better, but playing that tape didn’t get you what you want (god, aren’t they stupid, i’m so-oh angry!). The satisfaction of pulling out can’t be as good as having your image back, can it? Dumb mistakes in business have been happening since the beginning of time and I would submit that if you would have stated your case and just posted on the discussion group for linkedin they would have capitulated. Can you really project this one mistake into a pattern and to a philosophy of business for linkedin? I reserve the right to be wrong on this, but since you didn’t try, we’ll never know.
Harva —
Your questions are fair and reasonable.
I felt that, as a paying user, and as a leader of three popular groups that I created, that I was providing LinkedIn with much more value overall than a regular, non-paying, user. When people interacted in my group I was providing LinkedIn eyeballs and deeper integration with their service.
Did I feel I should be singled out and celebrated for paying and leading — no, but sure — do I feel I should be singled out for punishment when their logo policy is absolutely not being universally enforced? Absolutely not.
I get tons of invites each week and I’d say only around 60% of those folks are meeting LinkedIn’s strict image guidelines.
Their current image policy is unenforceable and arbitrary and that means it can only be selectively applied instead of universally adopted — so they’ve set themselves up in the bully role of auto-deleting logos and images they meanderingly decide they don’t like and there’s no appeal process to argue the point.
They did refund the unused portion of my paid subscription and they haven’t said a word to me since — and I’m happy to be there, freeloading off their service like most people, but I won’t go out of my way to promote them or celebrate them as I had been doing here on the blog and in the Boles Blogs Network and beyond because business relationships require communication and respect as a delicate dyad and not as one way streets going only LinkedIn’s way.