A class action lawsuit against Microsoft’s LinkedIn, which accused the platform of using customers’ private messages to train artificial intelligence models, has been dismissed. The case was dropped by plaintiff Alessandro De La Torre on Thursday in the U.S. federal court in San Jose, California, just days after the suit was filed. LinkedIn had argued that the allegations were unfounded.
De La Torre’s lawsuit claimed that LinkedIn violated the privacy of its Premium users by disclosing their private messages to third parties involved in developing AI. He accused the platform of breaching its promise to use customer data only to enhance its services, not for external uses like AI training.
The issue came to light when LinkedIn updated its privacy policy in September, revealing that a new account setting would not affect data used in previous AI training. This disclosure sparked concerns among users about how their data was being handled.
However, LinkedIn clarified that it had not shared private messages with third parties for AI training. In a LinkedIn post, Sarah Wight, the company’s vice president and legal counsel, confirmed, “We never did that.” De La Torre’s legal team acknowledged the clarification, stating that users could take comfort in knowing their private messages had not been used for AI purposes.
