Facebook secretly let Netflix and Spotify read your PRIVATE messages – as tech giants rocked by bombshell report
The company has consistently failed to protect users
FACEBOOK gave complete access to your private messages to outsider companies like Spotify and Netflix.
The secret partnerships were exposed through leaked Facebook files that highlight the company's ongoing failure to protect user's privacy.
A stunning exposé by the reveals how Facebook had undisclosed partnerships with tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Spotify and Netflix.
In some instances, the companies were given access to data long after it was supposed to be cut off.
In fact, Facebook let Yahoo "view streams of friends' posts" as recently as this summer.
Facebook maintains that users gave permission for these apps to hoover up such data – but it's not clear how aware users were of this.
For instance, the NYT reports that Facebook gave Apple access to users' contacts and calendar entries – even if data-sharing was turned off.
Apple denied it was aware it had "special access", and that it had never requested such a level of access.
Amazon received the names and contact info of users in an ongoing partnership.
The company hasn't officially revealed what this data was accessed for, but said it was used "appropriately".
Microsoft's Bing search engine was given access to names and profile info for a users' friend, without their permission.
The tech giant says it has since deleted the data, and that only "public" data was accessed.
But perhaps the most serious breach of privacy was the fact that Spotify, Netflix and the Royal Bank of Canada were granted the ability to read users' private messages.
In a statement given to The Sun, a Netflix spokesperson said: "Over the years we have tried various ways to make Netflix more social.
"One example of this was a feature we launched in 2014 that enabled members to recommend TV shows and movies to their Facebook friends via Messenger or Netflix.
"It was never that popular so we shut the feature down in 2015.
"At no time did we access people’s private messages on Facebook or ask for the ability to do so."
Spotify told the NYT that it was "unaware of the broad powers Facebook had granted them".
A Spotify spokesperson told The Sun: "Spotify’s integration with Facebook has always been about sharing and discovering music and podcasts.
"Spotify cannot read users’ private Facebook inbox messages across any of our current integrations. Previously, when users shared music from Spotify, they could add on text that was visible to Spotify. This has since been discontinued.
"We have no evidence that Spotify ever accessed users' private Facebook messages."
An Amazon spokesperson told The Sun: "Amazon uses APIs provided by Facebook in order to enable Facebook experiences for our products.
"For example, giving customers the option to sync Facebook contacts on an Amazon Tablet. We use information only in accordance with our privacy policy.";
How to delete Facebook – easy steps to QUITTING for good
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Temporarily deactivating your account is really easy – and you can log back in at any time to undo it:
- Follow this
- Choose "Manage your account" and then scroll down to click "Deactivate your account"
Facebook has a special page for permanent account deletion, which you can find below:
It's worth noting that you can also download a copy of your information from Facebook as a back-up:
- Click the down arrow at the top right of any Facebook page and select Settings
- Click "Download a copy of your Facebook data" at the bottom of the General Account Settings
- Click Start My Archive
The news comes less than a week after Facebook admitted that it had exposed private photos on your smartphone.
The social network gave admitted it gave app makers too much access to the photos of up to 6.8million users.
When apps connect to your Facebook – like Tinder or Spotify – they get permission to access some information.
For instance, Tinder can take some of your photos to populate your dating profile with.
But Facebook accidentally gave some app makers additional access to photos they shouldn't have been allowed to see.
This included photos you'd never actually posted to Facebook, but that were inside your phone's private camera roll.
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This year has seen Facebook caught up in several major controversies over privacy.
The main one came in March, when Facebook was forced to admit that it had given away users' info without their consent.
And then in September, Facebook admitted that it had given hackers access to tens of millions of accounts.
Do you trust Facebook anymore? Let us know in the comments!
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