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Facebook Acknowledges It Shared User Data With Dozens of Companies (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Facebook has admitted providing dozens of tech companies with special access to user data after publicly saying it restricted such access in 2015. Facebook continued sharing information with 61 hardware and software makers after it said it discontinued the practice in May 2015, the social networking giant acknowledged in 747 pages of documents delivered to Congress late Friday. The documents were in response to hundreds of questions posed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by members of Congress in April.
Facebook said it granted a special "one-time" six-month extension to companies that ranged from AOL to package-delivery service United Parcel Service to dating app Hinge so they could come into compliance with the social network's new privacy policy and create their own versions of Facebook for their devices. Data shared without users' knowledge included friends' names, genders and birth dates. Facebook's documents also said it had discovered that five other companies "theoretically could have accessed limited friends' data" as a result of a beta test. Facebook said in the documents it has ended 38 of the partnerships and plans to discontinue seven more by the end of July.
Facebook said it granted a special "one-time" six-month extension to companies that ranged from AOL to package-delivery service United Parcel Service to dating app Hinge so they could come into compliance with the social network's new privacy policy and create their own versions of Facebook for their devices. Data shared without users' knowledge included friends' names, genders and birth dates. Facebook's documents also said it had discovered that five other companies "theoretically could have accessed limited friends' data" as a result of a beta test. Facebook said in the documents it has ended 38 of the partnerships and plans to discontinue seven more by the end of July.
Is anyone surprised Facebook did this? When you sign up for a free service that obviously requires lot's of money to operate.That company will find ways to sell your information as a commodity in order to stay in business. In fact you could argue this was Facebook's plan all along was to create a site to collect personal data and then sell it as a service to companies wanting it.
Three million is "dozens". Lots and lots of dozens.
Don't be a dumb fuck.
Jack's broken friendship button
How many governments also enjoyed access to this data, either directly or indirectly?
You're the product
because sharings caring. Sold yes.
...apparently it's all worth it for these attention whores to have a convenient way to post their oh so important pictures of their meals, as if anyone actually gives a shit.
Finally, some limits on what Facebook and other creepy stalker companies can do.
... then I realised, the news isn't that Facebook shared the data, it's that Facebook admitted it.
leading killers of us still.. cease fire stand down, there are moms & babys in every town the world around.. that's the spirit..
Facebook has admitted providing dozens of tech companies with special access to user data after publicly saying it restricted such access in 2015.
It's not a problem if you don't use Facebook. (or less of a problem anyway) I understand why people use Facebook but I really don't see the value proposition as anywhere near sufficient for me to trust them with any sensitive data. I can't control what other people do but I'll be damned if I'm going to help them out by volunteering my information just so people I barely interact with can pretend to be my "friend".
You FOSS people want everything else to be free, why not personal data?
Frankly this is hardly news, let alone tech news. Facebook has been from its very inception a tool to harvest personal data for sale as analytic data to corporations seeking to exploit the human condition in the sale and marketing of products and services. The simplest way to curtail this behavior is to stop using facebook. There is no legislative process, no interlocutory system of plugins and ad blocking, and no personal privacy setting that is more powerful or directly effective.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Yeah that's always been their business model.
Everyone knew this going in. Wait until people "realize" their facial recognition technology ties in with the US govt.
That'll be a hilarious discovery
I think the real story should be about the information shared pre-2015, before the restrictions were officially applied.
If there was widespread sharing of userdata after restrictions were put in place, what was the scope of sharing before that???
That wasn't the expectation when it started: it was an on-line version of the college yearbook, run on a shoestring. It was named after the Harvard student directory, thus the name.
It grew, and added universities first, funding itself privately and then via venture capital, and only then business pages, making it a recruiting supplier (like linkedin) and then an advertiser. Eventually it added high schools, and finally anyone.
It's customers were the "slowly boiled frogs" of the fable: only now is it obvious that facebook became a spy service at some time in the past.
davecb@spamcop.net
just the tip of the iceberg, the shocking truth comes in small pieces.
Of course not. Facebook's business model is the accumulation and sharing of data. Why does anyone expect them to behave in a manner that runs against their business model?
Seriously, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc have been selling your data for YEARS.
The ONLY one that has not sold off our data (that connects directly/indirectly to us) is Google. Google DOES sell data, but it is aggregated data, it is not individual data. IOW, it can not be used to tie to you.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
How much more of this do you have to see? It's time to leave social media behind. Stop fooling yourself that you 'need' it.
After all this news, anyone who is still using Facebook and gets data mined should take responsibility for their own stupidity.
Facebook has manipulated, lied to, and sold out its users from the beginning. They only admitted any wrongdoing, (oh, sorry, those were mistakes, right?), when Congress held their feet to the fire. The Zuck can't even go to Britain now, or he'll be hauled in front of Parliament and asked questions that he clearly doesn't want to answer. (There's a delicious corollary here that goes something like "if you're afraid, then you must have something to hide"). Examples of Facebook lying and dissembling continue to come to light - such behaviour seems to be part of their corporate culture, from the top down - and yet they're still in business.
I understand people who grudgingly give in to extortion by mobsters, or to threats by blackmailers. What I DON'T get, is people who seem quite happy to be manipulated, deceived, and turned into products by the very companies to whom they grant full-access backstage passes to their very lives. Do Facebook users truly think themselves so unworthy?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
>>dozens of tech companies with special access to user data
Oh totally cool thanks Mark Zuckerberg we trust you now. Glad I put all my real life and kid's first farts and every soup I made in November 2017 online for studies and data acquisitions.
Why are you people sofa king stupid.
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
SOLD is the term you were looking for.