Can you BLOCK someone on LinkedIn?

• You can hide the public version of your profile  – that is the version that is visible to people who aren’t signed in to LinkedIn.  But keep in mind that this is an all or nothing setting – NO ONE will be able to see your public profile and it will NOT be found by someone searching via Google, Bing, etc
• You can hide your profile photo.  But your choices are only: Everyone, My Network or Connections – again, there are no specific settings to indicate a single user.
• You can change your profile display name. There are two options: First and last name OR First name and last initial. Note: This option is only available if you’ve turned off your public profile and your first-degree connections always see your full name, regardless of your settings.
• You can adjust your settings for who can send you invitations. You can select one of the following preferences: All Invitations (this is the default), only invitations from people who know my email address or appear in my “Imported Contacts” list, only invitations from people who appear in my “Imported Contacts” list. Really, the last two are like saying you are only going to allow invitations from people you have told LinkedIn that you already know. If you choose one of those last two options, invitations that don’t meet your preferences will appear in your LinkedIn Inbox under the Blocked Messages filter dropdown.

None of these provide any level of protection from someone who may want to learn more about you. As I have said on numerous occasions, please do NOT post anything online anywhere, social media or otherwise, that you would not want seen on the cover of the New York Times. Even sites that offer privacy settings cannot really ensure they will work. Please be careful and think twice (and then again) before you post anything that you wouldn’t want seen and/or shared.