Internet Evolution Reports on Cyberstalking Victim's Campaign to Get LinkedIn to Protect Users

NEW YORK, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 6 million Americans are victims of stalking every year. One of those victims wants LinkedIn to do more to help stop cyberstalkers.

After being sexually assaulted at work, Anna Rihtar quit the job she loved to avoid her attacker. And, like many unemployed people, she turned to LinkedIn to find work. But Rihtar's attacker followed her online. In addition to phoning, emailing, and pursuing Rihtar on Facebook and Twitter, he began cyberstalking her on LinkedIn, leaving messages that were alternately flirtatious and threatening.

So, like many of the other stalking victims, Rihtar took steps to protect herself. She changed her phone number and blocked her attacker on Facebook and Twitter. But she couldn't do anything about him on LinkedIn.

Find out more about Rihtar's story, and her efforts to get LinkedIn to do more to stop cyberstalkers in "Cyberstalking Victim Wants LinkedIn to Do More to Protect Users" (http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=466&doc_id=263420). 

"I've been stalked myself, so I can sympathize with what Anna is going through," says Alison Diana, Editor, ThinkerNet, for Internet Evolution, who reported and wrote the story. "There are simple steps that LinkedIn could take to help protect its users ‒ tools that nearly every other social network provides. LinkedIn needs to fill this gap."

"People have a right to be safe from stalkers and sexual assault in the workplace, and today the workplace extends to LinkedIn and other online tools," says Mitch Wagner, Editor in Chief of Internet Evolution. "Alison's report highlights an important gap in the protection available to workers online."

Internet Evolution (www.InternetEvolution.com) is the leading online community where CIOs and business technology leaders discuss the future of the Internet. It features blogs, message boards, leadership reports, video blogs, online classes, webinars, and more.

Internet Evolution is published by UBM DeusM (www.deusm.com), the marketing services division of UBM, specializing in building and operating highly engaged communities of qualified users within specialist B2B markets using a strategy of best-practices focused on content and technology.

Contact:
Amy Averbook
Sr. Marketing Director
UBM DeusM
(917) 743-2693
averbook@deusm.com

About UBM DeusM
UBM DeusM (www.deusm.com) is an integrated marketing services company owned by UBM plc, targeting the fastest growing segment of the online publishing industry: business social media. The company is led by Managing Director Stephen Saunders, Min's Marketer of the Year 2010. He and the other UBM DeusM principals have built and delivered more than 45 successful sites and online communities over the last two years. UBM DeusM's service is based on a unique platform, called Community in a Box (CiaB), which employs a structured system of proven B2B Web publishing best-practices, combined with a breakthrough integrated multimedia publishing platform ("n-Server") to enable marketers to quickly and profitably set up specialized communities for their target customers.

SOURCE Internet Evolution