Until 2015, Facebook shared detailed profile data of users and their friends with myriads of third-party apps, not only with shady political marketing firms.
I found examples of how major global IT firms encouraged their clients to systematically harvest personal info from FB:
I found examples of how major global IT firms encouraged their clients to systematically harvest personal info from FB:
Beside of the debate about having an API vs. having a closed Facebook data system:
- Which companies have gathered data from FB until 2015?
- Was it legal? (US/EU)
- Do they still have it?
- Can FB help us to find out which companies accessed data?
- What about the FB FTC case?
- Which companies have gathered data from FB until 2015?
- Was it legal? (US/EU)
- Do they still have it?
- Can FB help us to find out which companies accessed data?
- What about the FB FTC case?
Apparently, it was easy to gather extensive profile data or even information about someone's friends when running a Facebook app until 2014/15.
See also e.g. @ibogost's piece: theatlantic.com/technology/arc…
See also e.g. @ibogost's piece: theatlantic.com/technology/arc…
But even if it was seen as "normal" for tech people that doesn't mean they shouldn't be held accountable, both Facebook and app developers, especially when larger companies or brands.
Facebook changed its user interface to make it easier for third-party apps to trick users into data sharing:
And FB did not just generously open up its platform, but benefited from third-party apps, from taking a 30 percent cut from FB game developers to getting a wide range of third-party content+services to scale the network and lock-in users through third-party authentication with FB
Facebook shut down data access step by step. Perhaps a bit because of the public debate on privacy, but mainly because they eventually became this closed attention-for-sale platform they are today instead of the platform intermediary they wanted to be:
Today, the very largest tech companies like FB and Google do not directly, for the most part, share or sell their detailed digital consumer profiles to third parties. They let other companies *utilize* their data, and they let them use their infrastructure to collect more data.
But what is considered as "normal" by tech and marketing people today is perhaps even worse.
Most of today's websites, apps, shops, and devices share behavioral data with thousands of companies in *real-time*, to personalize content, ads, prices, choices: crackedlabs.org/en/corporate-s…
Most of today's websites, apps, shops, and devices share behavioral data with thousands of companies in *real-time*, to personalize content, ads, prices, choices: crackedlabs.org/en/corporate-s…
