Researcher says LinkedIn probes thousands of browser extensions and sends encrypted fingerprinting results with web requests

A researcher reports that LinkedIn checks browsers for 6,278 Chrome extensions by probing extension resources, a practice they say dates back to at least 2017. The article argues the results are encrypted and attached to requests, creating a potential fingerprinting system that can identify users even outside normal sign-in contexts.

If accurate, the findings show how anti-fraud or security tooling can overlap with privacy-invasive tracking when deployed at platform scale. The case highlights growing scrutiny of browser fingerprinting techniques, especially when tied to companies that already hold sensitive professional identity data.