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The New York Times just published a scathing report on Facebook's data sharing practices. Citing over 60 interviews and "hundreds of pages of Facebook documents obtained by The New York Times, generated in 2017 by the company's internal system for tracking partnerships," the publication claims that Facebook shared far more data than they've disclosed. Among other things, Facebook "allowed Microsoft's Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users' friends without consent," and "gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users' private messages." Amazon was given contact information through friends lists, while Yahoo was allegedly viewing friends' posts after Facebook promised "it had stopped that type of sharing." The report goes on an on, listing multiple ways Facebook violated their users' privacy and possibly ran afoul of regulations, but notes that the U.S. "has no general consumer privacy law, leaving tech companies free to monetize most kinds of personal information as long as they don't mislead their users."
How closely Facebook monitored its data partners is uncertain. Most of Facebook"s partners declined to discuss what kind of reviews or audits Facebook subjected them to. Two former Facebook partners, whose deals with the social network dated to 2010, said they could find no evidence that Facebook had ever audited them. One was BlackBerry. The other was Yandex. Facebook officials said that while the social network audited partners only rarely, it managed them closely. "These were high-touch relationships," Mr. Satterfield said.
How closely Facebook monitored its data partners is uncertain. Most of Facebook"s partners declined to discuss what kind of reviews or audits Facebook subjected them to. Two former Facebook partners, whose deals with the social network dated to 2010, said they could find no evidence that Facebook had ever audited them. One was BlackBerry. The other was Yandex. Facebook officials said that while the social network audited partners only rarely, it managed them closely. "These were high-touch relationships," Mr. Satterfield said.