I have a friend by this name, but this is not him.

Though I use my email account to log into LinkedIn, I did not give it permission to browse my contacts and try to link me to them. I prefer to control my connections manually.

A few weeks ago during my monthly "log on to LinkedIn and see who requested a connection" session, after accepting the few invites I had, I looked at the next section which is a list of suggestions who I might want to invite. Normally this list is comprised of people who are connected to other people I am connected to, or maybe people who I have worked with in the past. Some kind of algorithm spits out who they think I should know.

And that's when this name caught my eye. I know a guy by this name, but this is not him. Now granted, there is a little "3rd" over on the right side, so perhaps this is just a coincidence, but I still smell a rat. I feel like somehow LinkedIn has poked their nose in my contacts.

I think I'm being paranoid. Anyone have some tin foil I can borrow?