Source: Vindu Goel - The NY Times ( Paid Registration )

Four LinkedIn users have filed a lawsuit accusing the business-oriented social network of accessing their e-mail accounts without permission, harvesting the addresses of their contacts and spamming those people with repeated invitations to join the service.

In their most explosive claim, the plaintiffs say that LinkedIn is “breaking into” external e-mail accounts, like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, by pretending to be the account owner, although the legal complaint offers no details about that assertion. Larry Russ, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, declined to comment beyond the suit.

Read Full Article: Users sue LinkedIn over harvesting of e-mail addresses