LinkedIn has announced that they will allow their users to block other members, which is good news for users of the social network who have requested the feature to be added for a long time because of all the unwanted requests users get every day by random members, and because people users don’t want to view their profiles could.

In a LinkedIn blog post, Paul Rockwell, the head of the Trust and Safety division said “We built this feature not only because it was a feature our members requested, but because we knew it was the right thing to do.” While users are glad they finally included the member blocking feature, some are still wondering why it took so long, since other social media networks have had some sort of blocking feature for some quite some time.

In addition to the member blocking, LinkedIn also added some extra privacy settings like:
Disconnecting: This gives users the ability to remove any connection to a member on their network.
Customize Your Public Profile: This gives users the ability to control what content can be discovered through search engines.
Activity Broadcasts: This gives users control over what updates other users can see on their profile.
Photo Visibility: This controls who can view a user’s profile picture.
Profile Viewing: This alters what other people can see when a user views their profile.

The new member blocking works both ways, when you block a member, they can no longer view your profile and you can’t view their profile either. If you are both connected on a network, the connection will be broken. If you don’t want to hurt a member’s feelings you can block them anonymously, and they will not receive any notification about it. You are also allowed to block up to 50 people at a time, and can always unblock them if you ever change your mind.