A New York Times investigation revealed that Facebook shared its users’ private data, without its users’ consent, with other tech giants including Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify, and Netflix.
Facebook claims that is not what happened and is on the defense again over privacy issues.
This time regarding the allegations that Facebook gave their other tech company partners the ability to read, write and delete users’ private messages.
Now Facebook says this New York Times article is misleading.
They have posted two blog posts explaining what they were doing and why it’s not shady.
The New York Times has reported that it obtained internal Facebook documents that show how the social media giant arranged to share data with more than 150 companies.
The Times says Amazon got access to Facebook users names and contact information through their friends on the social network, Yahoo could look at user’s friend’s posts.
While Microsoft’s search engine Bing was allowed to see the names of virtually all Facebook users’ friends without consent.
The Times also said in their report, streaming services Netflix and Spotify had the “ability to read Facebook users’ private messages.
Adam Schwartz is a Senior Staff Attorney with the EFF’s civil liberties team and he says it’s time for action to hold Facebook accountable.
A few of the companies named in the report have already spoken out.
Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo told The Times any data they accessed was used appropriately.
Netflix replied to The Times on Twitter that it “never asked for, or accessed, anyone’s private messages.”
In a newsroom blog post, Facebook said, “None of these partnerships or features gave companies access to information without people’s permission,” and that “Facebook’s partners don’t get to ignore people’s privacy settings, and it’s wrong to suggest that they do.”
Facebook says they worked closely with four partners to integrate messaging capabilities into their products so people could message their Facebook friends – but only if they chose to use Facebook login.
In a statement sent to KRON4 News, Facebook said:
“We know we’ve got work to do to regain people’s trust. protecting people’s information requires stronger teams, better technology, and clearer policies, and that’s where we’ve been focused for most of 2018. Partnerships are one area of focus and, as we’ve said, we’re winding down the integration partnerships that were built to help people access Facebook.”
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