Another privacy scandal erupts
Facebook says it gave other companies, such as Spotify and Netflix, access to millions of people’s private messages.
The social media giant admitted to the practice in response to a report that Facebook shares private data to partner companies as part of its third-party integration, which allowed users to use their Facebook credentials to login to other web sites and apps.
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg (R), and Joel Kaplan (L), Vice President, Global Public Policy at Facebook, leave the Elysee Palace after a meeting with the French President on May 23,2018 in Paris, France. On the eve of VivaTech, French President Emmanuel Macron brought together some of the world’s leading technology names for the Tech for Good event. (Photo by Aurelien Morissard/IP3/Getty Images)
Facebook wrote in a blog post:
Did partners get access to messages? Yes. But people had to explicitly sign in to Facebook first to use a partner’s messaging feature. Take Spotify for example. After signing in to your Facebook account in Spotify’s desktop app, you could then send and receive messages without ever leaving the app. Our API provided partners with access to the person’s messages in order to power this type of feature.
