Why LinkedIn is now no better than spam.

LinkedIn used to be a great idea. In the efforts to monetize, it has been reduced to little more than a spam sender. Today I got a friendly but precise solicitation from a headhunter in London. But there are two show-stopper problems.

• At the bottom of it, there was a link to see his profile. The link does show a limited profile, but unless I upgrade to a paying service, I don't get to see any useful information, like the guy's full name. This asymmetry is unprofessional. When someone solicits me with an offer, I should be able to learn about them.
• If I click the "Not Interested" button, I get a page which offers me a choice or reasons why. That's all well and good, but there is a pre-selected check box which says "Accept the sender’s request and share my contact information". Really? The default is a unilateral "Put me in this guy's tickler list and don't tell me anything about them." I think not.

The whole balance has tipped towards headhunters trying to build a portfolio of people and away from people actually maintaining a high quality network of colleagues.