With a company like LinkedIn, I'm pretty sure Unsubscribe means unsubscribe.
They'd get in too much trouble these days, if they played like the old days.
In my experience, they sometimes come back to you a few times, but if you instead ignore them they go away after a time or two.

It's possible your friend just hit some button to have LinkedIn mass reach out to everyone in your friend's contacts list, and it wasn't directed at you in particular.

One thing I don't like about it is that your supposed friends are giving access to private email addresses, to private commercial companies. And then it's not opt-in, but opt-out.
Who knows if those companies actually delete all reference to your email address, or somehow keep them on file.

Your friend may be able to remove you as a contact that they themselves have for you on LinkedIn but I don't know for sure, I don't use the site.

I thought LinkedIn was an employment site. My step daughter registered for Face Book and sent me an invitation using my family and friends email account. I also sent her an angry email and blocked Face Book. I recently got an email from so they still have it in their records.

Alright you guys, take it easy a bit.
I don't do social groups and don't like being solicited to either, but people in their teens and twenties (and later) have a significantly different sensibility about privacy, and much different channels for staying in touch, which to a large extent include social media.
So they don't mean any harm - it's just normal to them, and actually a bit strange not too do so. So I think unloading on them might make you look a bit out of control - and so probably better to inform them of the consequences of playing lightly with private contact info, and bring them up to speed on your own desire for privacy - rather than lambast them.
Just a few thoughts.

I never used linkedin, but I know people who do. A couple years ago, linkedin really annoyed lots of people and caused many people to get unintended (by the sender), join requests. I received several. I was under the impression that most of those problems were over, but who knows. I had not understood how the unintended requests were generated and it is nice to hear what happened; thanks asm198. In either case, kbarb is right; just ignore it.

It's been a couple of years since I signed up, so they could have changed that process. However, I've noticed that if I'm not active in awhile, I'll start getting emails from them and when I log on, the first thing on the page asks about inviting friends and it's easy to get caught that way as well.

Linkedin is useful for some networking and has a decent job listing, but can be pretty obnoxious about recruitment.

My step daughter was 50 years old.

asm198 has it right. Every time I go to the LinkedIn site I get hounded to invite everyone in my email list. You have to be so vigilant to avoid that. I bet it was an inadvertent invitation.

Emma, I'm sure your step daughter appreciated getting a nasty email to her facebook invitation. I don't know what her age has to do with anything, but my mom (who is in her 70's) used to send me upwards of 30 email forwards a day, even though I repeatedly asked her to stop. It was incredibly annoying to me, but it is apparently the way she and her friends like to communicate and brighten each other's days.

If I followed your way of thinking, I guess I should have sent her a nasty, hateful email, since she was clogging up my inbox with nonsense on a daily basis. Instead, I simply created a rule in my account that automatically deletes all emails from her with any variation of "forward" in the subject.

My email was once hacked and a virus link was sent out to my contacts. I found out about it when I received a furious phone call from a former boss, who had clicked on the link and infected his computer. He simply did not believe that someone's email could get hacked, that I did it on purpose, and no amount of talking would convince him otherwise.

I'm honestly baffled that people think it's acceptable to send angry emails to people for things like this. Just delete the stuff and move on. If it continues, mark it as junk or block the address.

Easy does it there asm198 - people are going to say you're overreacting too. Probably you could make your point without the sarcasm.

Btw I wasn't saying to just ignore the invites, but that people think they're doing something friendly, or normal in their world, and don't always think it out. So I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and get it straightened out with assertion but politely.
Too many times I've reacted really angrily to something that's happened to me, only to find out I'd made an erroneous assumption, there was something I hadn't thought of, or some other valid point of view - and then I've regretted what I'd said.

Parenthetically, indeed I really dislike getting solicited to, or invited from social media sites, or any other, and really object to people sharing my email address without my permission.

And I must admit I've probably been a bit stern with responding to some of those kinds of things in the past.

But you should do what you think is right and appropriate; I'm just sharing my experience.

You're right, kbarb, I might have toned down the sarcasm a bit, but my point stands. These people likely meant no harm with these invite emails, and might not have even known they were being sent out. Getting unsolicited emails is annoying, but getting angry with friends and relatives about it is just odd to me.

My mom, for example, honestly thinks she's doing something nice when she sends me forwards of puppies or sparkly hearts. And she thinks she's being helpful and looking out for my safety when she sends me stuff about how some County Sheriff has discovered a new gang initiation that involves something hiding under my car to slice my tendons, not to stop to help a baby on the side of the road, or to never flash my lights at someone who has flashed at me.

Back when this was happening, if I wasn't able to check my email for a couple of days, I'd come back to 100 of these things in my inbox. I'd rather get a couple of random social media invites than the equivalent of chain letters on a daily basis.

But there seems to be an odd amount of veiled hostility on this forum, directed toward the "kids" and their obsession with social media. I completely understand if someone doesn't want to be a part of any of those, but they can have value, so the open dismissal of them, and of the people who are members is perplexing.

Every couple of months, someone invites me to be part of their LinkedIn network, but I'm not interested. I just treat it as part of the harmless 30+ spam messages I get each day from Groupon, Facebook; Shutterfly, Amazon, etc. Sometimes I'll actually look at one of them, but usually I delete them all in 15 seconds and move on. If you are going to use the internet, that comes with it. Nothing to get riled up about.

It wasn't my intention to derail this thread. When I first signed up with Linkedin, I would have been mortified if I had accidentally sent an invite to my entire contact list. Several of my contacts are for people who I long ago cut off contact with, but have kept their email address, so that any emails from them will be automatically deleted.

So if I received an angry email from someone about something I did unintentionally, it would bother me. I certainly hope that my friends would know better than to assume that I was trying to coerce them into something they had no interest in and would give me the benefit of the doubt. Everyone, at one point or another, has accidentally clicked something they didn't meant to click.

I will admit there being more to the story that caused that kind of reaction towards her. I took care of her father my husband with AZ and she didn't visit one time in those 4 years except to borrow money. I asked for help one time in the 4 years for her to sit with him at the hospital to keep the hospital from putting him in lock up and so I could go home bath and get some sleep. And she would not help. That email was the only hostility she saw from me in 33 years of marriage to her dad. So be careful about judging others.

Well it wasn't inadvertant. He is genuinly trying to solve my problems for me with his beliefs. Wants me to read various sites that prove them. Well they don't prove it to me - their claims seem more like wishful thinking to me.

I have repeatedly rebuffed his approaches but he hasn't gotten or can't accept that I'm not interested. Evidently I've been too subtle. Odd that as I've never been known for subtle. He's a real good guy but has over stepped hisself way too much on this. I'm screwin this dog: he's not even holding it's tail.

As for age he's about 70 - and I'm way past - so it isn't an age thing (young age anyway). The access to my private email address also is a concern here. I spose it's not all that private anymore actually.

As far as over reacting you damn betcha! I'm under a tremendous amount of pressure with my home caregiving situation. Just about anything sets me off. It's just is no damn fun and I can't help it. It's a constant fight to keep myself in control. I don't need outside influences stressing me out and I sure as h*ll don't need his network on LNKD.

In conclusion thanx for your insights/perspectives and I will delete the email and hope LNKD goes away. If that doesn't do it address blocking will be attempted and if all else fails the email address will change - what a pain.

Grrr :-)

I'm not judging anyone. Your initial post made it sound like you were angry about the facebook invite and didn't allude to any underlying issues that might have contributed to the email response.

mxyplux, you should be about to create a rule in your email to block all emails from the @linkedin.com address.

I can't speak to how any of you or those you know use Linked in, but I will say that in Silicon Valley, it's a much used means for easily keeping track of contacts.

I get very few emails invites from people I don't know, but the ones I get, I just nuke on the site.

I experienced the contact book invasion matter (which you should know is a practice many legit sites use) when trying to install their Android app. There was a question, I said "No", and deleted the app. I now access it only through the website. It doesn't ask for my contact list anymore.

I've gotten some messages from headhunters, not many. I tell them politely I'm not looking for a job, no reason to contact me again, and all have honored that request.

I very much echo the view that sending nasty emails is never warranted, especially not to a family member. Doing so is a quick (and unnecessary) way to start a family feud, no reason to risk that. Why not just call?

Jeeze, this is almost turning out to be some kind of group therapy session, how interesting.

Well, as I wrote above :

". . . . . only to find out I'd made an erroneous assumption, there was something I hadn't thought of, or some other valid point of view - and then I've regretted what I'd said."

And here it is, true again.

mxyplux & Emma, good luck with your friend's and step-daughter's annoying invites, and all your generous caregiving. I think you have all the advice you need at this point.

Life get's complicated, no ?

How about we all take a breather.

It's almost time to put the tomatoes in the ground out here in San Francisco.

;-)

Deep breathe here. I am in a strange situation and thanks to everyone for you patience with me.

I got one of those invitations to LinkedIn yesterday, too. I do know the person doing the inviting, but have no use for the site, etc, etc.

If I just delete the invite without any kind of reply, will it go away?

duluth-

It's like anything else in your Inbox -- the letter from the Nigerian prince, the cheap Viagra, etc.: delete it and it's gone (at least until the next time!).

As long as you haven't registered at LinkedIn duluthinbloom, it will go away if you delete it. It's not spyware, just a networking site.

Thanks, PKponder. I'll do just that.

I had a friend who asked me to join LinkedIn too. A couple or three emails asking me to join and that was it. Just delete the invites.