This comes via InformationWeek…
Is the new LinkedIn Intro service for iPhone users safe to use?
"LinkedIn Intro is an email service that helps you be brilliant with people," according to a related overview published by LinkedIn, which also details how Google Apps administrators can block employees from using the service.
"When people email you, we show you their LinkedIn profile: you can put faces to names, write more effective emails, and establish rapport," reads LinkedIn’s pitch. "You can grow your professional network by connecting with them on LinkedIn."
There’s just one catch: To use the service, a LinkedIn user must route all of their emails through LinkedIn’s so-called "Intro" servers, which then scan the emails for certain types of content, and — at least temporarily — store the passwords to users’ external email accounts. "The servers use software to extract information from each message: for example, the sender’s email address is extracted, so that the servers can search for their LinkedIn profile to include in the message," according to LinkedIn’s overview.
[ Will the federal government like this service? Read Feds Warm Up To LinkedIn. ]
To accomplish this task, the servers may temporarily cache a user’s password, presumably before generating an OpenID identifier that’s then stored on the iPhone, and used to handle future authentication.