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They do a lot more than that - e.g. they scan all your contacts so they can spam them as well.

Only if you grant them access. It's not required to use LinkedIn.

Erm, nope. Unfortunately, I downloaded the iOS app before Apple finally stopped their annoying "growth hack" by introducing a permission for accessing the contact list.

To this day, I still have ex-girlfriends, one-time ridesharing buddies and even some fictuous people "waiting to connect with me" on LinkedIn.

Not sure when you downloaded it but the contacts permission was added under iOS 6 in 2012.

http://www.imore.com/how-restrict-apps-access-your-contacts-...

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