Facebook, the social media giant appeared on several news reports for allegedly sharing users’ data again with tech companies. In fact, even after the sensational controversy over Cambridge Analytica data breach, they didn’t put an end to sharing users data with the whole host of top tech companies despite publicly restricting the third-party companies to access its user’s data back in 2015.
However, Facebook apparently revealed in its 747-page long document reply to the Energy and Commerce Committee (U.S. House of Representatives) that after the public declaration in 2015 they still continued to retain the data sharing process with 61 tech companies which include hardware as well as software giants even though they had given them time to comply with the new data sharing rules.
In the long document, Facebook clearly mentioned that they have granted a “one-time” six-month extension to 61 companies including AOL, Audi, Nike, Nissan, Oracle, Panasonic, Saavn, Snap, Spotify & United Parcel Service among a long list of others.
Apart from that, there are other 5 companies including Activision that have access to a certain amount of friends data and for that, they were granted API access as part of the facebook beta test, which Facebook further explained in the documentation. But later, they have suspended their access to it and there is no sign that the companies have leveraged it.
“We engaged companies to build integrations for a variety of devices, operating systems and other products where we and our partners wanted to offer people a way to receive Facebook or Facebook experiences. These integrations were built by our partners, for our users, but approved by Facebook”
Besides that, the aforementioned document also discloses another significant fact which states that Facebook was tied up with 52 international companies out of which they have already terminated 38 of them, and will also cut their ties with another seven companies by the end of this July and another one by the end of this October.
Also, most importantly, their partnerships with Amazon, Apple, and Tobii, an accessibility app for people suffering from ALS, will be retained without any further issues. Alongside, Mozilla, Alibaba, and Opera will also remain as it is due to the fact that these respective web browsers are employed for sending Facebook notifications, but they won’t receive any access to the social media data of a Facebook users’ friends.
Overall after this divulgence which makes things way more controversial to the fact that is Facebook still can be considered as the reliable & credible source to protect its 2 billion user base? Time has to say it.
