LinkedIn: The Creepiest Social Network 13 years ago
probably worth pointing out that LI doesn't have ads and makes its money from subscribers, most of whom i'm guessing are sales/recruiting.
from a pure-business-no-ethics perspective, why would you care what anyone else thought? w/ that point of view: every connection or link, however creepy, makes the system as whole more valuable to subscribers.
personally, the feature doesn't have enough churn, so i always see the same 5 faces, 99% of the time it's background...otherwise it would probably creep me out slash annoy more.