Access to personal user data
Facebook for years has given other companies like Microsoft and Amazon much broader access to users’ personal information than it has disclosed.
The conditions that apply to these companies are detailed in in documents obtained by the New York Times. Facebook’s records, created in 2017, provide the most complete picture of the social network’s practices on sharing their users’ personal data. Furthermore, this data illustrates how personal information is growing increasingly valuable in the digital age.
Facebook acquired more users in order to grow its advertising revenue, and the partner companies received a way to advertise their products/services on Facebook. The social media network also amassed great power over the personal information of its 2.2 billion users.
The report from New York Times showed that Facebook has allowed for Microsoft’s global search engine Bing to see the names of almost all of its users’ friends without their consent. Netflix and Spotify have the ability to read users’ private messages on Facebook. Facebook also allowed Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends, and let Yahoo see the stream of friends’ posts up until this summer.
This matter is really alarming. It is, thus, understandable that user might want to know exactly how much data a company has on them. Read the answer to this frequently asked question by the European Commission’s official website.
If you liked this article, then you might also enjoy reading this one.
Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
