Now the once most popular social network has to answer the court again. Allegation: data abuse!
The Silicon Valley Group was caught up again by the old scandal around the company Cambridge Analytica. The New York Times revealed that the online network has been providing technology companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and Spotify access to sensitive user data for years.
Washington’s Attorney General Karl Racine filed suit on Wednesday over the data abuse affair.
In the spring, it had come to light that the data of some 87 million users had landed at the British company Cambridge Analytica and used by her illicit for the election campaign of today’s US President Donald Trump.
Users were exposed to risk of manipulation
Facebook has failed to protect the privacy of its users in Cambridge Analytica, Racine said. In addition, he had „misled his users about who had access to their data and how they were used.“ As a result, they have been exposed to the risk of political manipulation.
According to the Attorney General, the lawsuit seeks to ensure that Facebook takes appropriate action to „live up to its promise to protect the privacy of its users.“
The response of the company was initially conceivable just short of: Facebook is considering the lawsuit, in addition to continue his „discussions with the Attorney General of DC and elsewhere,“ it said.
User data to third parties
Previously, the „New York Times“ reported that Facebook left far more data of its users to third parties than previously known.
After extensive research, 150 „partner“ companies were able to access sensitive information: Microsoft’s search engine Bing, for example, had access to the names of Facebook friends without consent, Netflix and Spotify were able to see private messages, Amazon usernames and contact information.
According to the paper, some of these business agreements are going back to 2010, others were still in force in 2017.
For months, the company has been experiencing one crisis after another. Just last week it became known that in the event of a data breach, photos of perhaps 6.8 million users could fall into the wrong hands. The negative headlines apparently worried investors: The Facebook share was on Wednesday (18.30 clock MEZ) by 5.83 percent.
