LinkedIn is changing the way outside services plug into its popular business-centric social network.
Under the new rules, outside apps and websites can still use LinkedIn to log you into their own services and perform other tasks that rely on the social network’s data. But after May 12, LinkedIn will shutdown access to some data. For example, outside services will no longer have access to the length and breath of your LinkedIn profile (even if you give your approval), and they won’t be allowed to send invitations to connect on LinkedIn.
If companies and developers still want access, they’ll have to apply for inclusion in an official LinkedIn partnership program.
LinkedIn says it’s trying to cut down on apps that don’t benefit its users. “We’ve obviously seen some great unique applications being built on LinkedIn,” says company spokesperson Julie Inouye. “But we’ve seen a couple that are spammy, or sites that are using LinkedIn to grow their membership, which we don’t think is in our users’ best interests.”
The move is part of a larger shift in the way web giants allow outside applications to interact with their services. Most notably, Twitter—which once allowed widespread access to its service through APIs, or application programming interfaces—is now significantly restricting what developers can do. In 2012, it limited the number of users that outside services were allowed to juggle.
More recently, Netflix shut down its public API entirely.
The result is an internet that’s not quite as fluid as it once was, an internet that’s divided into pieces. That said, even as larger players close off their APIs, the number of open APIs listed on Programmable Web, a directory of such services, continues to grow.
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