Save yourself: LinkedIn privacy settings

LinkedIn offers a very special type of social networking, in my opinion one of the most handy utilization. But as every “free” offers, LinkedIn lives from you data – for easy understandig, you are the cattle.

So if you do not want to share every data with everybody (or everyone) on LinkedIn and even with third-party people, please take a look at the following settings. You can find them at your LinkedIn Account and Settings page, at the bottom.

Profile

Privacy controls

Turn on/off your activity feed

By selecting this option, your activity updates will be shared in your activity feed. (tick) Let people know when you change your profile, make recommendations, or follow companies Note: You may want to turn this option off if you're looking for a job and don't want your present employer to see that you're updating your profile.

Even LinkedIn recommends to turn this off.

Select who can see your activity feed

Your activity feed displays actions you've performed on LinkedIn. Select who can see your activity feed.

Email Preferences

LinkedIn communications

Turn on/off LinkedIn announcements

Yes, I'd like to get announcements, tips, and insights into new products and features.
You don’t really need this.

Turn on/off invitations to participate in research

LinkedIn periodically invites users to participate in market research studies. Users are identified based on non-personal information such as title, company size or region. Participation is 100% voluntary and personal information is not revealed. (tick) Yes, I'd like to receive invitations to participate in online research studies.
You can leave this on if you want to be a good guy.

Turn on/off partner InMail

LinkedIn Partner InMails are messages from our partners with informational or promotional content that is part of a marketing or hiring campaign. These Partner InMails are sent to LinkedIn users based on non-personal information, such as the title of your current position, your primary industry, or your region, and are not from individual recruiters using LinkedIn. Your name and e-mail address will not be disclosed to LinkedIn's marketing partners. (tick) LinkedIn's marketing partners may send you informational and promotional messages. (tick) LinkedIn's hiring campaign partners may send you informational and promotional messages.
You only need this if you’re in search for a job, otherwise this will only result a lot of uninteresting e-mail.

Groups, companies & applications

Privacy controls

Turn on/off data sharing with 3rd party applications

Yes, share my data with third party applications.
You do not want to share your data with any kind of third party.

Manage settings for LinkedIn plugins on third-party sites

If you're signed in to LinkedIn when you view any page that uses our professional plugins, we receive information that you've visited that page. This allows us to improve your LinkedIn experience and provide you with insights from your professional network, like how many of your connections have shared an article into LinkedIn using the Share on LinkedIn plugin. (tick) Yes, allow LinkedIn to receive information about my visits to pages that use LinkedIn plugins.
You definately don’t want to be tracked by anyone.

Account

Privacy controls

Manage Social Advertising

LinkedIn may sometimes pair an advertiser's message with social content from LinkedIn's network in order to make the ad more relevant. When LinkedIn members recommend people and services, follow companies, or take other actions, their name/photo may show up in related ads shown to you. Conversely, when you take these actions on LinkedIn, your name/photo may show up in related ads shown to LinkedIn members. By providing social context, we make it easy for our members to learn about products and services that the LinkedIn network is interacting with. (tick) LinkedIn may use my name, photo in social advertising.
Be thankful you can turn this off.

Turn on/off enhanced advertising

LinkedIn works with partner websites to show enhanced advertisements to LinkedIn members on their sites. This collection of partner sites is called the LinkedIn Audience Network. Advertisements shown to you on the LinkedIn Audience Network are selected based on non-personally identifiable information from your LinkedIn profile. (tick) The LinkedIn Audience Network may show me enhanced advertising.
Ads, ads, ads, and even more ads. Turn this off.