For some reason, LinkedIn is hiding the last name of some members on profile pages when you’re logged in. This appears to be happening at least when you’re searching for a person on Google. As far as we can tell, it makes no sense.

Darren Nix at 42floors pointed this out in a blog post, though I noticed it the other day as well.

“This morning I had a call with someone I hadn’t met so I Googled their name and, inevitably, clicked through to their LinkedIn profile,” Nix writes. “I was bemused to note that, although the search result in Google showed their full name in the title, their profile page obscured their name until I ‘Upgrade for full name’.

He goes on to note that when he tried the same thing in Chrome’s Incognito mode (not being logged into LinkedIn), the profile displayed the full name.

This happened to be when I was covering a Yelp blog post. I was quoting the author of the post in my post, but for some reason Yelp’s blog only gives you the first name and last initial of is authors, as well as their titles. In this case, it was Justin O., Business Development. Naturally, I Googled “Justin O., Yelp Business Development,” and the first result was for the LInkedIn profile of Justin Overdorff. The name was fully visible on the search results page. When clicking over to the LinkedIn profile, however, like Nix, I was surprised to find a profile displaying his first name and last initial, while also being invited to “upgrade for full name”.

When clicking to upgrade, you’re invited to “see full names to network effectively” by paying an annual fee of $99.95 per month or a monthly fee of $119.95.

If you replicate the search and LinkedIn visit, you get the full name (for free).

Odd.

LinkedIn will release its latest earnings report this afternoon.

Images via LinkedIn