LinkedIn has won the dismissal of two US class-action lawsuits accusing it of illegally scanning users' Chrome browser extensions. A federal judge ruled that the plaintiffs, Nicholas Farrell and Jeff Ganan, failed to establish standing to sue because neither showed they had extensions installed that actually transmitted private information to LinkedIn, and the judge expressed doubt they could ever plausibly allege a genuine privacy violation given that browser extensions are voluntarily installed and inherently share data with websites.

The lawsuits followed a report from a German group called Fairlinked, dubbed "BrowserGate", which claimed LinkedIn was "illegally searching" users' computers. LinkedIn did not deny scanning browsers for extensions but pointed to its privacy policy, which already discloses collection of data on users' "web browser and add-ons," and argued the scanning was aimed at detecting scraping tools like one made by Teamfluence, an Estonian firm whose CEO LinkedIn banned and which is linked to Fairlinked's founder. Judge Vince Chhabria, of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, gave the plaintiffs a chance to amend their complaints, while their lawyer said he may refile in California state court or appeal to the Ninth Circuit, stressing the ruling addressed jurisdiction rather than the lawfulness of LinkedIn's practices.