"LinkedIn gave a statement on Saturday to AllThingsD, Bloomberg, and the Los Angeles Times saying that it would fight the charges, which it believes are unfair."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/linkedin-sued-by-users-who-say-it-hacked-their-e-mail-accounts/
Interesting phrasing --unfair, not untrue.
That's odd. Not sure where linkedin asks for passwords, I thought they used OAuth.
FWIW they also try and get Oauth/permissions when you sign up. You can verify the account the usual way, clicking on an email link, or use OAuth (of which it'll dutifully want permission to see your contacts). LinkedIn pushes the latter.
I don't see where they take passwords...
"LinkedIn used its member's identities without consent and broke into their third party e-mail accounts to send promotional e-mails to the members' contact lists"
Does sound worrying, I hope they're misunderstood.
I've never had a good explanation of why I don't use OAuth but always register an account that is not linked (at least not a shared password)... part of it is if the root acct gets hacked, everything is hacked.
But in the back of my mind, it's always been fear of something like this.
LinkedIn suggesting I know people I have last talked to many years ago, have last emailed to from an email account I haven't used for ages, never linked to my current account, never linked to LinkedIn, with whom I have no current common connections was freaky enough...