How come I can't see my friend's LinkedIn Connections?

I've signed up for LinkedIn and had some success getting my colleagues to sign up too, but I'm a bit confused: for most of my links I can see their connections too, but there are a couple of people who obviously have connections but I can't see or browse them. What's that all about and how could I do that if I wanted to keep my connections private?

Dave's Answer:

Let me show you how to do that in your LinkedIn settings, then let me explain why I think it's a pretty bad idea...

Log in to your LinkedIn account, then scroll to the bottom of the page. You'll see a bunch of useful shortcuts, including:

The one you want to select is Name, Location, Privacy. Click on that and you'll see a variety of different settings you can tweak, but let's look at the "Privacy" settings:

The key area is Connections Browse and if you read what LinkedIn says, this setting lets you enable or disable your connections viewing the rest of your connection list (people who aren't connected to you can never view your list regardless of this setting, of course).

If you really don't want to publicize your connections list, simply select No in this section and save your changes.

Now, is this a smart move given that you're using LinkedIn to be more efficient in your professional networking efforts and leverage both your direct and extended network? I believe not. Indeed, I see this as somewhat akin to going to a party and asking everyone who they know, but just smiling smugly if anyone asks you who you know. It won't take long for people to stop talking with you...

But even without that analogy, the key question you need to ask is what you're trying to gain from your efforts on LinkedIn. If you're trying to expand your network, then I think that the old Golden Rule of "do unto others as you'd like them to do unto you" applies here: don't expect to be able to leverage other people's extended networks if you aren't willing to share your own.

Having said that, if there is someone in your network who seeks complete privacy, then perhaps they shouldn't be involved with LinkedIn in the first place. Again, going to back to my party analogy, isn't this like saying you want to remain a private person while going to a public gathering? Ya can't have it both ways...

Anyway, you'll have to decide for yourself whether this is a setting you want to disable on LinkedIn, but at least now you know how do to so.

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Categorized: Twitter, LinkedIn and Social Network Help (Article 6434, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: linkedin, professional networking
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Reader Comments To Date: 7

Kevin Johansen said, on April 1, 2006 2:39 PM:

Agreed. Why keep knowledge of a business relationship private in this environment? It defeats the purpose of the system to close off access to your network.

But as it is currently, the design of this system leaves quality control and relationship management to be done pre-link, not post. So what about changes in relationships? If it gets weird between you and a person you're linked to, how do you break the link?

Best,
Kevin Johansen
Entrepreneur in Residence
The Davinci Institute
www.davinciinstitute.com
KWJ@davinciinstitute.com

Pradeep said, on May 5, 2007 12:03 AM:

Kevin,
You can delete your contacts if that is what you want to do!
read the FAQ for achieving that.
-Pradeep

Pierre Lagrange said, on September 26, 2007 6:41 AM:

Then, It would be a good idea for LinkedIn administrators to offer another possibility for subscribers to show their own connections only to their connections who also propose their connections. By this way, people wo hide their connections to others will have other people's connections hidden.

Pierre

Josh Darville said, on October 16, 2008 5:33 AM:

Being in sales, my contacts are the life blood of my business. So while it's good to network, and be social.

THERE IS NO WAY, i'm just going to openly let people cruise all my connections. If you search for, bill gates... and he's one of my connections, and then ask me to pass info along. I will always do that. But again, people who just go through and say, can you pass to this, person, and that person, oh oh! and that person. Is annoying and a waste of time for me at this point.

Don't get me wrong, I am a open networker, I'm constantly answering questions, asking questions, and growing my connections. But, well, I think i've already stated why you might in a Sales situation restrict access.

Best of Luck to Everyone.

Christian said, on October 17, 2009 2:12 AM:

Josh,

I can see your argument, although I feel that it is weak. The basic idea of a network is to show contacts with your friends, isn't it?

Let me put it this way: How useful do you think LinkedIn would be, if all of your contacts hid their connections from you?

Christian

bilal said, on February 20, 2010 2:11 PM:

i can not see my friends as usual

jere said, on March 26, 2012 2:47 AM:

I feel that there is definitely a feature lacking here and I disagree with the author's position.

I should be able to have a healthy contact with my competitors (I work freelance and often pass on work to competitors when I am not free for an assignment on a given day, and we often have professional discussions about the general climate in our profession) without having to give them all my contacts.

I should be able to have contact with my suppliers without telling them who my other suppliers are.

I should be able to have contacts with my staff to work on projects without giving their details on my competitors or, say, a headhunting company or temp agency that works for me.

I should be able to link to two or three different bankers or insurance companies without their knowing about each other.

I should be able to link to my customers without providing their details to my banker, or vice versa.

All of these scenarios could be potentially extremely compromising and impacting.

There are tons of reasons-- in the real world-- for not opening up to the whole world about everything. And needing to open up to some people to a full or limited extent.

So I would suggest simply enabling :
Selective "share / not share" capability

Make that capability applicable :
- to each individual contact
- and to user-defined groups. Belonging to the group would set the flag. No hassle.

This would also open the possibility of some contacts being switched from one status to the other.

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

How come I can't see my friend's LinkedIn Connections?

Reader Comments To Date: 7

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

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