A Ycombinator company had reached out to me via workatastartup.com and after going through with the interview process they asked for references before they can make an offer, which I promptly provided. The company did reach out to the references I had provided but also added random contacts from my LinkedIn and asked them to provide references for me - I had multiple friends reach out to me asking me about the application, when I had no intention or knowledge that they will find out about my interview process.This sounds like a gross violation of my privacy as I would expect for the interview process to be confidential.
After learning about this, I reached out to the recruiter only to receive a "my bad - the upper management had asked me to do this and I won't do it again" reply.
Has this happened to anyone else?