Page 25 - PCWorld (September 2019)
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HOW FACEBOOK WILL BE Both the FTC and DOJ alleged that
ALLOWED TO BROKER YOUR Facebook hadn’t told users how it was using
DATA TO ADVERTISERS data collected on you and your friends.
FTC: Facebook must exercise greater In April 2014, Facebook announced that it
oversight over third-party apps, including would stop allowing third-party app
terminating app developers that fail to developers to collect data on your Facebook
certify that they are in compliance with friends, as well as on you. The FTC said,
Facebook’s platform policies or fail to justify however, that Facebook privately told
their need for specific user data. developers that it could collect data on
The major thrust of the FTC’s consent friends through April 2015 if they had an app
decree is to oversee how Facebook sells your on the platform. At the same time, Facebook
data to third-party advertisers. Again, there’s told reporters that it had deprecated, or
nothing here about limiting Facebook’s ability phased out, what it called Graph API V1,
to actually acquire your data. (The FTC also which allowed app access to friend data.
said that it had sued Cambridge Analytica Instead, the company said, Graph API V2
[go.pcworld.com/anly], the developer of the would be used, which blocked third-party
“thisisyourdigitallife” app, which in or around developers from accessing that data. But
2014 allegedly collected personal information what Facebook didn’t tell anyone is that more
from Facebook users after the app claimed than two dozen “whitelisted” developers
that it wouldn’t do so.) were still given access to Graph API V1 and
the friends data,
according to
the DOJ.
That data
included “users’ bios,
birthdays, family and
relationships,
websites, status
updates, photos,
videos, links, notes,
hometowns, current
cities, education
histories, work
histories, activities,
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