[logicallee]

Not to detract from the main point of this thread (which I agree with) but do you mind sharing why you write "catastrophically" embarrassing? And caused 'a lot of grief'?

I'd never think twice about getting a linkedin invite email from anyone who for any reason has ever emailed me (ever). It's obviously automatic... I really can't think of an exception...

[city41]

There are more email addresses lingering inside your email account than you probably realize. I just did a search for "LinkedIn sorry" to find all the apologies I sent out. 38 of them. All to complete and total strangers. When it first started happening I did some digging and found the connection for a lot of these people is we were on a common mailing list.

Not to mention the more obvious ones like ex-girlfriends, ex-bosses (including one I am not on good terms with), companies that I applied to and did not end up working for, etc. This is my gmail account, it has every email I've ever sent in the past 9 years. There's a lot of stuff in there.

EDIT: I don't know if LinkedIn still does this, but at the time LinkedIn would send reminder emails for any ignored invites. Which just compounded the problem.

[kibibu]

> Your Ex has sent you an invitation to LinkedIn. Would you like to endorse their skills?

[tedunangst]

If that is the worst thing that happens to you, you should be thanking LinkedIn for teaching you a valuable lesson about typing your email password into random forms on the Internet (or sharing passwords).

[phyalow]

Your Ex has endorsed you for "Family Planning".