LinkedIn stopped short of apologizing for the way social ads works. In a blog post titled "Privacy, Advertising, and Putting Members First," LinkedIn said it had been "gathering feedback" from its users and that it wanted to "clarify a few things."

It noted that it published and a banner ad in June informing users the feature was being rolled out. It said it never shares personal information with third-party advertisers.

"Most importantly, what we've learned now, is that, even though our members are happy to have their actions, such as recommendations, be viewable by their network as a public action, some of those same members may not be comfortable with the use of their names and photos associated with those actions used in ads served to their network," says the blog post, attributed to Director of Product Management Ryan Roslansky.

"So, we will be changing how these types of social ads look," it said, providing "before" and "after" pictures of a sample advertisement. It didn't say when the changes would be made.

The ROI Guy website posted for users who want to.