LinkedIn has just introduced a new phone app called Intro that helps provide information to you about LinkedIn members when they send you email. That info is added to the email itself. Or something like that.

Now… before I go much further, I have to admit (to anyone that hasn’t already seen this obvious point in some of my earlier stuff) that I still hold to quaint notions about privacy and keeping control over my own things and any statements or messages ascribed to me. When I tried to install the Facebook app on my phone and saw all of the things it got access to (like, everything), I backed out. So if you think that’s ridiculous, then perhaps you need read no further.

But I just saw an interesting review of this LinkedIn app, which some of the mainstream press is calling relatively innocuous (possibly because the implications aren’t obvious to them, just as they might not be to pretty much anyone that installs the app).

As much as I’m skeptical about the motives of a lot of these apps, I’m also aware that there are lots of hypesters out there that like to make mountains out of molehills to get Likes. So I don’t want to swallow this whole. But… an app that totally changes how your emails are routed? Running all your emails through their servers??? Sheesh, not even the NSA had the cojones (or the bright idea) to do that.

So I’m curious… do you guys agree with the analysis at the link above? Or is it overblown?

And if it is indeed that insidious, is this just a sign that sheeple will install anything? Or at some point will people start to become suspicious of apps? And if people stop trusting the basic app concept, what does that do to the overall cell phone business ecosystem?