ΛJust before the end of a year that put Facebook in the crosshairs of the American and European audit authorities, the company that saw its shares fall is now involved in a new series of revelations.
As they reveal today the New York Times, Zuckerberg's company has given access to large volumes of data to a number of giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix and Spotify. The deals helped Facebook gain more users and its "partners" to add new features to their products, effectively circumventing privacy rules.
All open in Messenger
According with reporting, the social network allowed the Microsoft search engine to see the names of almost all the friends of Facebook users without their consent, while it also enabled Netflix and Spotify to read users' personal messages. In the case of Spotify, the company connected to the user chat windows to send songs to their friends.
It also allowed Amazon to obtain usernames and contact information through their friends, and even gave Yahoo access to read user friend posts, despite the company announcing publicly that it had stopped sharing.
A total of 150 companies are involved with personal data being shared without the consent of those involved.
The Times reporters spoke with 50 former Facebook employees and government officials. At the same time, they had access to 270 pages of confidential documents. Royal Bank of Canada is among the companies that were allowed to access sensitive data, even personal messages. The article states that even "locked" discussion threads were "unlocked" for the sake of companies.
It is noted that since last year it is known that Sony, Amazon and Microsoft, had access to user email addresses, through the accounts of their friends on the social networking platform.
The deals included 60 smartphone makers, including Apple and Huawei. Apple, according to the same data, could "see" contacts and user registrations, even if they were "private". Also, without "requesting" data from the user, he could record and register them.
Facebook also appeared as "recommended friends", users whose details had been posted to other giants with whom it "collaborated" in the scandal published by the New York Times.
The response of companies
The company responded to the post by refuting all information. He claims that the big companies acted "as an extension" of Facebook. As mentioned, any information that a user shared with friends on his personal page, could be disclosed to the companies involved without his own consent. He admitted, however, that in the past there were such "synergies", but without financial compensation.
"Facebook associates can not ignore users' privacy settings and it is wrong to claim that they do," said Steve Sutherfield, director of Facebook's Privacy and Privacy Policy. "Over the years, we have partnered with other companies so that users can use Facebook on devices and platforms that we do not support ourselves," he said.
"Unlike a game, music service or other third-party application that offers Facebook-independent experiences, these partners may offer specific Facebook features and may not use information for independent purposes," he added.
In statements to the newspaper, Spotify and Netflix stated that they did not know that they had received specific access and that they did not use it.
Apple finally told the NY Times that it did not know it had special access and that the data described never left the user's device.
[the_ad_group id = ”966 ″]
