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Facebook Wanted Banks To Fork Over Customer Data Passing Through Messenger (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: For years, Facebook has publicly positioned its Messenger application as a way to connect with friends and as a way to help customers interact directly with businesses. But a new report from The Wall Street Journal today indicates that Facebook also saw its Messenger platform as a siphon for the sensitive financial data of its users, information it would not otherwise have access to unless a customer interacted with, say, a banking institution over chat. In this case, the WSJ report says not only did the banks find Facebook's methods obtrusive, but the companies also pushed back against the social network and, in some cases, moved conversations off Messenger to avoid handing Facebook any sensitive data. Among the financial firms Facebook is said to have argued with about customer data are American Express, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.
The report says Facebook was interested in helping banks create bots for its Messenger platform, as part of a big push in 2016 to turn the chat app into an automated hub of digital life that could help you solve problems and avoid cumbersome customer service calls. But some of these bots, like the one American Express developed for Messenger last year, deliberately avoided sending transaction information over the platform after Facebook made clear it wanted to use customer spending habits as part of its ad targeting business. In some cases, companies like PayPal and Western Union negotiated special contracts that would let them offer many detailed and useful services like money transfers, the WSJ reports. But by and large, big banks in the U.S. have reportedly shied away from working with Facebook due to how aggressively it pushed for access to customer data. Facebook said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal: "Like many online companies, we partner with financial institutions to improve people's commerce experiences, like enabling better customer service, and people opt into these experiences. We've emphasized to partners that keeping people's information safe and secure is critical to these efforts. That has been and always will be our priority."
The report says Facebook was interested in helping banks create bots for its Messenger platform, as part of a big push in 2016 to turn the chat app into an automated hub of digital life that could help you solve problems and avoid cumbersome customer service calls. But some of these bots, like the one American Express developed for Messenger last year, deliberately avoided sending transaction information over the platform after Facebook made clear it wanted to use customer spending habits as part of its ad targeting business. In some cases, companies like PayPal and Western Union negotiated special contracts that would let them offer many detailed and useful services like money transfers, the WSJ reports. But by and large, big banks in the U.S. have reportedly shied away from working with Facebook due to how aggressively it pushed for access to customer data. Facebook said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal: "Like many online companies, we partner with financial institutions to improve people's commerce experiences, like enabling better customer service, and people opt into these experiences. We've emphasized to partners that keeping people's information safe and secure is critical to these efforts. That has been and always will be our priority."
"Opt-in," my pasty white ass.
There are a shit-ton of "experiences" on Facebook that I haven't "opted in" to. Indeed, when I try to turn them off, Facebook turns them right back on again (most notably "Most Recent" versus "Top Stories", and "Login via profile picture"). Facebook should be trusted with precisely nothing.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
They really are sickos at facebook, they wanted to become the ultra middle men, between all customers and all suppliers. Not honest ones either but lying to both to maximise the middle man cut, either end getting shit, whilst they suck up all the profits, total power, total control, nothing but idiot psychopaths temporarily corrupt the human digital medium. You use Facebook and you are part of the problem, you are an idiot, dragging the rest of us with you, you know better, yet you still give away the privacy of everyone you interact with.
This kind of invasion and manipulation of all human social interactions across it's corrupt platform is extremely disturbing and should be investigated and if necessary prosecuted for purposefully causing psychological harm to it's users, duty of care, criminal negligence, fraudulent misrepresentations of the service supplied, in whose interest it was, who benefited and what people lost.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Among the financial firms Facebook is said to have argued with about customer data are American Express, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.
If Wells Fargo had a problem with it, something's definitely hinky.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .