One of the largest corporate espionage and data breach scandals in digital history': New "BrowserGate" report claims LinkedIn secretly scans user browsers for installed extensions and collects device data
LinkedIn calls it a smear campaign
by https://www.techradar.com/uk/author/sead-fadilpai · TechRadarNews By Sead Fadilpašić published 6 April 2026
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- Report alleges LinkedIn scans browsers for extensions
- Claims data used against competitors in “BrowserGate”
- LinkedIn denies misuse, calls accusations a smear campaign
A new report is alleging LinkedIn uses hidden JavaScript to scan its visitors’ browsers for installed extensions, looks for those that compete with its own sales tools, and then twists its users’ arms until they stop using those and pick LinkedIn’s products, instead.
However the social network says this is a smear campaign run by a disgruntled extensions developer who lost a court battle in Germany.
An “association of commercial LinkedIn users” called Fairlinked e.V published a report detailing “BrowserGate” - claiming LinkedIn scans for thousands of browser extensions and ties the results to identifiable user profiles - and by scanning, LinkedIn harvests personal and corporate information.
Article continues below
Scans confirmed, motives not
"LinkedIn scans for over 200 products that directly compete with its own sales tools, including Apollo, Lusha, and ZoomInfo. Because LinkedIn knows each user's employer, it can map which companies use which competitor products. It is extracting the customer lists of thousands of software companies from their users' browsers without anyone's knowledge,' the report states.
"Then it uses what it finds. LinkedIn has already sent enforcement threats to users of third-party tools, using data obtained through this covert scanning to identify its targets."
Apparently, the scanning part is true - BleepingComputer ran an independent test and saw a JavaScript that checked for exactly 6,236 browser extensions. The publication says that many of the extensions scanned are related to LinkedIn, but some have seemingly unrelated features - language and grammar extensions, tools for tax professionals, and others.
“The script also collects a wide range of browser and device data, including CPU core count, available memory, screen resolution, timezone, language settings, battery status, audio information, and storage features,” BleepingComputer reports.
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