Having the ability to block people from being able to view and access your profile has long been a contentious issue on LinkedIn and there has been an ongoing campaign to get an option that mirrors a similar function on other networking sites, and Facebook in part. As a result, there has been a considerable amount of pressure brought to bear from certain quarters to create such an option, the focus coming from a personal security perspective, citing occurrences of stalking and inappropriate behaviour.
LinkedIn’s Blocking Functionality
In response, LinkedIn have finally announced functionality allowing you to block individual members from viewing your profile page when you are on the site. You can now go to a member’s profile and opt to block them by selecting the “Block or Report” option from the pull down menu next to their name which will then give you the options as below:
While the concept has been generally welcomed, concerns still remain with many people believing that the functionality has not gone far enough. At the top of the list is the fact that you still cannot block people who view your profile anonymously… and indeed you cannot stop them from viewing you in that way. This is still high on people’s list of desired changes when it comes to the blocking feature.
How the Blocking feature works
When you decide to block someone on LinkedIn, then there are a few elements that you need to remember and certain trade offs that occur, although none of which are particularly problematic.
- when you have blocked someone, they cannot see your profile on LinkedIn
- if you were connected you will no longer be (logically!)
- any messages between the two parties involved will be deleted
- you will no longer appear in their “Who’s viewed your profile” or they in yours
- you can only block a maximum of 50 people
- if you are a Group manager then you cannot block a Group member from viewing your profile, nor vice versa
A full set of the conditions can be found in LinkedIn Help Centre here.
A word of warning or comment – this does not as yet apply to the mobile version of LinkedIn that is available through the LinkedIn app – nor does it apply to the public profile version which is automatically created for you and indexed by the main external search engines. You can of course restrict what appears on your Public profile although in this instance it would be for everyone rather than specific people.
So, a step in the right direction in many people’s eyes but with still some way to go if LinkedIn is looking to appease all of the demands that people have to safeguard this particular part of their online security.
