Several people have hit upon the major method LinkedIn uses which is that someone you know who has your name/email/... (or likely many someones) uploaded an address book to LinkedIn. LinkedIn then infers that because that person knows you, that you may know the other people they know (which is often true). They then combine that when a bunch of far more complicated inferences to generate the list.
The goal of course is to provide suggestions to someone who just signed up. Sadly, the reason it feels creepy is because it seems like voodoo. They could do a better job explaining how it worked, but a lot of the bigger inferences are secret sauce.
Several people have hit upon the major method LinkedIn uses which is that someone you know who has your name/email/... (or likely many someones) uploaded an address book to LinkedIn. LinkedIn then infers that because that person knows you, that you may know the other people they know (which is often true). They then combine that when a bunch of far more complicated inferences to generate the list.
The goal of course is to provide suggestions to someone who just signed up. Sadly, the reason it feels creepy is because it seems like voodoo. They could do a better job explaining how it worked, but a lot of the bigger inferences are secret sauce.