full article: https://eraoflight.com/2018/12/22/facebook-sold-your-information/

Facebook has once again found itself in the hot seat after a scathing investigation revealed the social media giant entered into secret deals giving their corporate partners access to more of its users’ personal data than previously admitted.

In April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress, “We don’t sell data to anyone,” during a hearing to investigate the company’s role in the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of data. Although Facebook claims that it instituted stricter privacy protections following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, hundreds of company documents obtained by the New York Times expose how Facebook allowed more than 150 companies to bypass those protections and continue to access data without informing users. The Times also conducted interviews with dozens of former Facebook employees and corporate partners which indicate the company may have violated a 2011 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) barring Facebook from sharing user data without permission.

The documents obtained by the Times detail how Facebook allowed companies like Yahoo, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple to access users’ newsfeed, friends list, private messages, and account settings. Facebook also reportedly developed a tool allowing them to turn access to users’ data on and off — even if a user had opted to disable sharing their data.

Although a Facebook spokesperson stated the company found “no evidence of abuse by its partners,” the FTC has opened an investigation into the allegations. According to David Vladeck, former head of the agency’s consumer protection bureau, “This is just giving third parties permission to harvest data without you being informed of it or giving consent to it.”