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.

LinkedIn scans for 6,278 extensions and encrypts the results into every request