You Should Use LinkedIn Privacy Settings. Here's How.

If you've granted your permission in the past, LinkedIn periodically scans your phone and email contacts to help you find new connections. But the company uses some of that data for targeted advertising as well. LinkedIn also settled a lawsuit in 2015 after it bombarded members' contacts with email inviting them to connect. It’s easy to stop syncing your contacts, and delete any the company has collected.

To stop syncing contacts: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Account preferences > Sync Contacts > Remove All.

By default, the "Who's Viewed Your Profile" features lets other users know when you've looked at their LinkedIn page. If you'd rather keep your browsing habits to yourself, you can choose to remain anonymous.

There are two options: The first lets the other person know that someone at your company or with your job description viewed their profile. The second will only tell the other person an "Anyonymous LinkedIn member" took a look.

There's a disincentive, though. If you turn on this privacy setting, you won't be able to see who's been viewing your profile, and it will erase your viewer history.

To stay anonymous as you browse: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Profile viewing options > Select the option of your choice.

There's a variety of information you could add to your LinkedIn account for which you might want to limit access.

For instance, you could be happy keeping the email address they've provided on display, or you many want to restrict that information to direct connections or hide it altogether. The same goes for other details, such as your phone number, list of connections, or even your last name.

LinkedIn provides controls for a number of sensitive details. With some controls you can only choose public or private, but in a few cases you can fine-tune who can see the information. You can also decide whether other users can see when you're logged in.

To limit sensitive information: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Visibility > Select the various options and choose your preferences.

LinkedIn's advertisers can send promotional content through InMail, the platform's messaging service. You can block those messages while still receiving regular InMail messages—or turn off InMail altogether.

To block sponsored messages: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Communications > Messages > Switch off the toggle under "Allow LinkedIn partners to show you Sponsored Messages."

Using a strong password is essential, but you can take your security further by turning on multifactor authentication, which the platform calls "two-step verification." With this setting on, LinkedIn will send you a verification code to confirm your identity when someone tries to access your account from an unusual location, device, or browser. You can get codes using text messages, but the safest option is to set up an authentication app.

Turn on MFA: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Account preferences > Two-Step Verification > Turn On > Select your verification method.

LinkedIn lets third-party researchers use data from your account to "research social, economic and workplace trends," according to the platform's privacy policy. But you can opt out of some of this data sharing.

Even if you turn the setting off, de-identified data (which is stripped of personally identifiable information) may still be shared with outside researchers. And there's no way to prevent the company from using your data in an anonymized form on its Talent Insights platform, where LinkedIn sells reports about the workforce.

To limit data-sharing: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > How LinkedIn uses your data > Social, economic and workplace research> Switch the toggle off.

You can connect your LinkedIn and Microsoft accounts, which lets you access LinkedIn information on Microsoft's other apps and services. For example, if you couple the accounts you can see other users' LinkedIn profiles in Outlook and send them invitations.

However, if you connect your accounts, Microsoft may use your profile information, connections to other people, and data about your interests for targeted advertising. And LinkedIn gets access to information from Microsoft, such as your contacts and appointments on your calendar.

If you've connected these accounts in the past and are having second thoughts, you can decouple them.

To disconnect a Microsoft account: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Account preferences > Partners and Services > Microsoft > Remove.

(If you've connected your Twitter account to LinkedIn, you can remove that from this same tab as well.)

Just like you can join your LinkedIn and Microsoft accounts, you can also connect LinkedIn to third-party services to make it easier to do tasks like filling out online job applications and using social media management tools.

Creating these connections is easy, and you may even have done it in the past without realizing it.

However, the more accounts you tie together, the more vulnerable you are to security and privacy risks. It's smart to check whether you’ve given other services access to your LinkedIn data, and revoke any permissions that you no longer find useful.

To revoke third-party access: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Other applications > Permitted Services > For each service, click Remove.

You can’t opt out of seeing advertisements on LinkedIn, but the platform gives you a number of options for limited targeted ads, the kind based on your personal data.

LinkedIn’s ad settings page offers you more than 20 individual toggles and check boxes to adjust—we managed to disable them all in about 30 seconds. Turning off each one makes for a small privacy boost.

You may want to spend a minute examining each setting, though. The settings affect both advertisements and promoted jobs—so if you turn off all the permissions, you may see fewer relevant jobs being promoted. As an example, you might want to keep seeing promotions tied to companies you follow and your job history, but turn off ads based on demographics.

Turn off targeted ads: Click the “Me” icon near the top right corner > Settings & Privacy > Advertising data > Switch off the options of your choice.

It doesn't matter if you're on your phone or your laptop, your personal information can leave a digital trail of where you go online. On the "Consumer 101" TV show, Consumer Reports' expert Thomas Germain explains to host Jack Rico what to do to protect your online privacy.