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https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/19/tech/facebook-user-data-big-tech-companies/index.html
NYT: Facebook offered big tech firms more user data than previously revealed
New York (CNN Business)Facebook offered more of its users' data to companies including Microsoft and Amazon than it has admitted, according to a new report by The New York Times.
The Times reported late Tuesday that it obtained internal Facebook (FB) documents that provided insights into the social network's data-sharing arrangements with more than 150 companies. The deals worked on a quid-pro-quo basis, the report said, with the connections helping Facebook gain more users and its partners add new features to their products while effectively avoiding Facebook's regular privacy rules.
Many of the partnerships ended years ago, but the details reported by the Times are striking.
Amazon (AMZN) got access Facebook users' names and contact information through their friends on the social network, according to the report, while Microsoft's (MSFT) search engine Bing was allowed to "see the names of virtually all Facebook users' friends without consent." Streaming services Netflix (NFLX) and Spotify (SPOT) had the "ability to read Facebook users' private messages," it said.
CNN has not independently viewed the internal documents obtained by the Times.
Despite assurances from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that people "have complete control" over who sees their content, The Times said the internal documents and interviews with 50 former Facebook employees indicated that the company still gave other firms access to user data.
The company's partnerships with Amazon and Apple (AAPL) are still continuing today.
In response to the report, Facebook's director of privacy and public policy, Steve Satterfield, said in a statement that its partners "don't get to ignore people's privacy settings."
Facebook has 'work to do' to regain trust
"Over the years, we've partnered with other companies so people can use Facebook on devices and platforms that we don't support ourselves," he said. "Unlike a game, streaming music service, or other third-party app, which offer experiences that are independent of Facebook, these partners can only offer specific Facebook features and are unable to use information for independent purposes."
Facebook knows it's "got work to do to regain people's trust," Satterfield added. "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."
The Times said the documents and interviews "raise questions about whether Facebook ran afoul of a 2011 consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission that barred the social network from sharing user data without explicit permission."
Satterfield told the Times that the 2011 FTC agreement "did not require the social network to secure users' consent before sharing data because Facebook considered the partners extensions of itself — service providers that allowed users to interact with their Facebook friends."
Amazon, Netflix and Apple respond
An Amazon spokesman said in a statement to CNN that it uses the software interfaces "provided by Facebook in order to enable Facebook experiences for our products," such as giving "customers the option to sync Facebook contacts on an Amazon Tablet."
Amazon uses the information in accordance with its own privacy policy, he said.
Netflix said in a statement that it launched a feature in 2014 that "enabled members to recommend TV shows and movies to their Facebook friends via Messenger or Netflix," but that "at no time did we access people's private messages on Facebook, or ask for the ability to do so."
The feature "was never that popular so we shut the feature down in 2015," it added.
An Apple spokesman referred CNN to a paragraph in the Times article citing Apple officials as saying they were unaware that Facebook had granted the company's devices any special access. Any shared data would remain on the devices and be available to anyone other than the users, according to Apple.
CNN was unable to immediately reach Microsoft and Spotify for comment late Tuesday. The Times reported that some of Facebook's biggest data-sharing partners — including Microsoft and Yahoo — told the newspaper that they had used the data appropriately but declined to discuss details of their sharing deals.
Media companies also involved
Most of the companies with which Facebook shared data under the arrangements were tech firms such as "online retailers and entertainment sites," according to the report, but they also included automakers and media organizations. The Times reported that it was one of those media groups.
The new report comes at a trying time for Facebook, which has faced a litany of criticism over how it handles user data. In April, the company said Cambridge Analytica, a data firm with ties to President Donald Trump's campaign, may have had information on about 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge.
In October, Facebook revealed that hackers gained access to the phone numbers and email addresses of almost 30 million of its users in the biggest security breach in the company's history.
At the time, Facebook executives said the FBI was "actively investigating the breach."
Donie O'Sullivan contributed to this report.
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