LinkedIn vs Facebook

LinkedIn collects not just profile data, but usage, device, location, message metadata, partner data, employer/school data, and off-site interaction data. This creates a detailed profile of your professional activity and browsing-related behavior.

Your profile, activity, inferred traits, and tracking technologies may be used to target and measure ads both on LinkedIn and elsewhere. There are settings to limit some ad uses, but the advertising system is broad by default.

If LinkedIn causes harm, its direct liability is generally capped at the fees you paid or US$1,000, and it excludes many indirect damages. That can significantly limit practical remedies for account, data, or service problems.

Users can request deletion, correction, restriction, objection, access, and a machine-readable copy of their data. These are meaningful privacy controls, especially for users in stronger-rights jurisdictions.

LinkedIn states that closed-account data is generally deleted within 30 days and the profile usually becomes hidden within 24 hours. That is more concrete than many platforms’ vague retention language.

LinkedIn says it may use personal data to develop, improve, and train AI models and generate inferences about you. That can include activity and other service data beyond what users may expect from a networking platform.

You keep ownership of your posts, but LinkedIn gets a worldwide, transferable, sublicensable license to use, modify, distribute, and display them without compensation. Some copies or sublicensed uses may persist after deletion.

Paid subscriptions renew automatically unless you cancel before the renewal date. LinkedIn may also continue billing stored payment methods and fall back to secondary payment methods if provided.

The supplied terms point disputes to courts rather than mandatory arbitration. EU/EEA/Swiss users also keep local consumer protections, which is more favorable than many large tech platforms’ dispute clauses.

LinkedIn can change its terms and privacy policy, and continued use counts as acceptance. It promises no retroactive changes and usually gives notice of material changes, which softens the risk somewhat.

Even after account closure, some content may remain visible to others, search caches may persist, and LinkedIn may retain data for legal, security, fraud, or de-identified uses. Users should not assume total erasure of everything they shared.

LinkedIn says it does not share personal data with non-affiliated advertisers except in limited cases such as hashed identifiers, user permission, or already-public profile data. This is better than an outright statement of selling full personal data to advertisers.

Meta collects information you provide, your activity, devices, contacts, and data from partners and third parties. In practice, this means Facebook can build a very detailed profile even from activity outside the app.

The policy says Meta receives information through cookies, pixels, and similar technologies from other websites and apps. This can connect your off-Facebook browsing and app activity back to your account or ad profile.

Some information is public by default, and public content can be viewed, reshared, downloaded, and even appear off Meta. Users should assume public posts may travel far beyond Facebook.

By posting content, you grant Meta a worldwide, sublicensable license to use, modify, distribute, and create derivatives. That gives Meta wide operational freedom to reuse what you upload while it remains on its systems.

Account or content deletion can take up to 90 days, plus another 90 days to remove copies from backups and disaster recovery systems. Some content can also be retained longer for legal, safety, or technical reasons.

Meta states it does not sell your personal data to advertisers and does not share directly identifying information without permission. That is better than a true data-selling model, though it still uses your data for ad targeting.

You can delete individual content, delete your account, and trash items begin a deletion process automatically after 30 days. The policy also says deleted items are removed from visibility while deletion is pending.

Facebook uses your personal data to show personalized ads and sponsored content, including across Meta products and sometimes off-platform. Even though Meta says it does not sell your personal data, your activity is still used for targeted advertising.

Meta can remove content, restrict features, suspend, disable, or delete accounts for serious or repeated violations, often in its discretion. Some review explanations may be withheld for safety, legal, or technical reasons.

Meta says you can download your information and, in some cases and subject to law, port it. This gives users at least some ability to take their data elsewhere.

For consumers, disputes are governed by the law of your country and may be brought in competent local courts. That is more user-friendly than forcing all users into a distant arbitration forum.

Meta says it will notify users at least 30 days before material Terms changes, unless the change is required by law. That gives users a chance to review updates before they take effect.