For the first time ever, LinkedIn is inviting high school freshmen, age 14 and up, now called “pre-university students” to add a “professional” profile. Thanks to WDCB for asking me to share my thoughts about Teen Profiles on LinkedIn. Here’s the interview.
Professional Network Allows Teen Users
When you want to catch up with family and friends you can turn to Facebook, but when professionals want to network online they’ve relied on LinkedIn. Last week LinkedIn announced it will lower the minimum age to create an account and profile on the site. WDCB’s Brian O’Keefe spoke with Glen Ellyn based social media expert Barbara Rozgonyi about the changes at LinkedIn.
Have a pre-university student in the house? Then, you’ll want to know more about privacy settings. So, here you go . . .
Updates to LinkedIn Terms of Service
Source: LinkedIn Blog
As we make LinkedIn available to pre-university students, we are taking steps to safeguard the experience of LinkedIn members under the age of 18, so we are implementing the following measures:
LinkedIn members who are minors will have different default settings to limit publicly viewable profile information and unwanted communications
Special routing for Customer Support tickets initiated by members under 18
We have added a link to our Safety Center and Family Center so that all members can easily find and access information on how to safely use LinkedIn
The minimum age for LinkedIn members will vary by country; in the United States it is 14. In deciding these ages, we worked to ensure that all were in line with existing regulations in each country.
Here’s the country and age breakdown:
14 years old: United States, Canada, Germany, Spain, Australia and South Korea
16 years old: Netherlands
18 years old: China
13 years old: All other countries
LinkedIn Privacy Settings for Teens are Different than for Adults
- Teens’ birth year will be hidden. After they turn 18, they will be given the option to display that information.
- Teens’ profiles will automatically be prevented from appearing in public search engines such as Google and Bing.
- Teens’ Profile photo will only be visible only to their “1st-degree” connections (people they connect with directly).
- Teens’ professional headline won’t be shown, to protect their privacy in search results.
- Teens’ profile will default to first name, last name initial, and general region, instead of their full name and city for all languages using Latin script — e.g., English, French, Dutch, etc.)
- Teens will not receive promotional or informational “InMail messages” from LinkedIn’s marketing and hiring partners.
- Teens; data will not be shared with 3rd-party applications, even if they :choose to install 3rd-party applications.
- Teens won’t see ads from LinkedIn when looking at other websites.
- LinkedIn says that it won’t collect information about teens when they are looking at other websites that partner with LinkedIn.
Looking for someone to interview or speak about LinkedIn and teens? I’d love to talk to you!
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