I joined LinkedIn back in 2005. Approximately 2 years after the business networking site had launched. Like blogging, joining a community like this was foreign to me, but I thought the concept was really neat and wanted to learn more about it. I consider myself an open networker and truly see the value in having many connections. But, over the past year, I have noticed a tremendous amount of spammers sending me invites. I have become guarded and now do not accept invitations nearly as often as I used to. I am curious to find out how many of you are receiving spam type invites and does this cause you to use LinkedIn (the free version) less often?