LinkedIn (temporarily) backs down after uproar at contact export removal

LinkedIn caused a storm a couple of days ago when it removed the option to instantly download contacts. Many users of the professional social network were more than a little irked to discover that while contact exporting was still available, a wait of up to three days had been put in place.

Unsurprisingly, users revolted, having been particularly upset by the fact the change was implemented with no warning or announcement. But the company has managed to turn things around by quickly backtracking on its decision after listening to a stream of complaints on Twitter.

Michael Korcuska, VP of Product Management later explained that the removal of the regular download option had been "part of our ongoing efforts to combat the inappropriate export of member data by third parties." As a result of the vocal outpouring of disapproval, instant CSV exporting is back... for now at least. Writing on Twitter, LinkedIn's customer service team announced the return of the instant download option:

We heard you loud and clear - we turned the CSV connections download tool back on. Read more: https://t.co/HXh4gwwjXR

— LinkedIn Help (@LinkedInHelp) July 25, 2015

But as Korcuska explains, the option is not going to be around in its current form forever. It will disappear again but only when the alternative download method has been sped up. Writing on the LinkedIn blog, he said:

Our goal is to make as much of your data, including connection data, available within minutes. We will keep the CSV connections tool available until we can reach that goal (some other data items will be available in an extended archive that may take longer to process). We will then turn this tool off again, as part of our ongoing anti-scraping efforts.

It's not clear what form future changes will take, or quite when they might be implemented. But, for now, instant contact exporting is back.

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