Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access To Data On Users and Friends (nytimes.com)

According to a report from The New York Times, Facebook formed data-sharing partnerships with Apple, Samsung, and dozens of other device makers, allowing them to access vast amounts of its users' personal information (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). From the report: Facebook has reached data-sharing partnerships with at least 60 device makers -- including Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft and Samsung -- over the last decade, starting before Facebook apps were widely available on smartphones, company officials said. The deals allowed Facebook to expand its reach and let device makers offer customers popular features of the social network, such as messaging, "like" buttons and address books.

But the partnerships, whose scope has not previously been reported, raise concerns about the company's privacy protections and compliance with a 2011 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. Facebook allowed the device companies access to the data of users' friends without their explicit consent, even after declaring that it would no longer share such information with outsiders. Some device makers could retrieve personal information even from users' friends who believed they had barred any sharing, The New York Times found. Most of the partnerships remain in effect, though Facebook began winding them down in April.

Comments

Expected

[gazelam]

Haven't we all been expecting news like this for a while? Seems like there is such a mutual dependency between the device makers and what they want vice what Facebook is willing to provide.

Re: Expected

[Reverend Green]

Creepy Facebook did something creepy.

In other news, fish like to swim.

Outsiders

[Errol backfiring]

, even after declaring that it would no longer share such information with outsiders.

To facebook, there are no outsiders. Getting stalked by them is not optional. You have been assimilated. Resistance is futile.

It’s an API...

[Anubis IV]

They’re talking about the API that was used by device manufacturers back before standalone Facebook apps were available on different platforms. The user still had to sign in and grant access for the API to be useful. The summary sounds as if it was written by someone who had the idea of an API explained to them, didn’t really understand it, and so they tried to explain it in less technical terms by referring to it as a “data sharing agreement”, giving it a very different connotation.

Re:It’s an API...

[Okind]

The user still had to sign in and grant access for the API to be useful.

Except that's not the issue here. Some user granting access to his/her own data is perfectly fine (I'm deliberately not going into whether it's smart or not).
The problem here is that data belonging to other people was accessible, even when these people did not grant access.

From the summary:

Facebook allowed the device companies access to the data of users' friends without their explicit consent, even after declaring that it would no longer share such information with outsiders.

Facebook essentially violated its own privacy policy.

The summary sounds as if it was written by someone who had the idea of an API explained to them, didn’t really understand it, and so they tried to explain it in less technical terms by referring to it as a “data sharing agreement”, giving it a very different connotation.

Whether an API or other (private) “data channel” (a term from the original article) was used is irrelevant. The story is about unauthorized use of personal data by third parties.

Re:It’s an API...

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the part that "consent" was granted to the users friends and their friends of friends without their knowledge. Which is the real problem here not just an API.

I was wondering how they got the dev makers

[rsilvergun]

to agree to pre install something like Facebook. Good to know.

Re:I was wondering how they got the dev makers

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the carriers, not the device manufacturers. Though the carriers probably have similar "data sharing agreements".

You are the product

[AHuxley]

and that product can be passed around a lot.

Re:You are the product

[findoutmoretoday]

Maybe but the product was given away for free. I was surprised to hear that Facebook was in control of nothing.

Re:You are the product

[AHuxley]

"Free" should not suggest a lack of privacy.
PRISM should how in control social media was of their product.

Perjury

[Zorro]

Mark Zuckerberg committed perjury in congressional testimony.

Re: Perjury

[Anonymous Coward]

Tech executives lie to Congress on a regular basis. How do you think they got big increases in the H1B program while tons on qualified Americans were unemployed?

Surveillance Valley execs make Big Oil execs look like upstanding citizens.

Ok, let's skip the next few of these articles...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's go straight to the real questions:

Who DIDN'T get access to Facebook's user-and-friends data?

Apple and privacy

[vlueboy]

"Absence of evidence is not proof of absence"
Let's keep this paraphrase and this story close at hand when the apologists continue professing how Apple absolutely protects your privacy.

Apple is more guarded with privacy and has done some commendable things standing up for privacy, but if they are willing to extract "other people's" private data from Facebook without our consent... how difficult could it be for us to be one of *those* "other people"? how appealing could it be your user's own data to be closely guarded if you are the borrower/keeper of that data, like Facebook happened to be in this case?

No "mistakes" are made when these costly / profitable data-sharing alliances are forged, except for getting caught, that is :)
It boils down to our picking the lesser of 2, 3, 4 evils, but every company ultimately ends up painting itself into a corner as the evidence slowly trickles in over the years.