After CNBC inquiry, Facebook suspends CubeYou, a firm that made popular quiz apps for Cambridge University and bragged it had personal info of tens of millions
that Facebook can't police Apps that use fraudulent means to get Facebook users to divulge personal information — it's going to be a very long couple of days. http://twitter.com/... @d1gi : Meaning that CubeYou used Facebook's account recovery “side door” aka did bulk FB user-matching by phone number and email address to build its enriched PII database Nick Short / @politicalshort : Facebook is suspending another data analytics firm called CubeYou after CNBC notified FB that CubeYou was collecting info about users through quizzes misleadingly labeled “for non-profit academic research,” then shared user info w/marketers. http://www.cnbc.com/... James Grimmelmann / @grimmelm : Note that Facebook failed to discover this on its own. I.e, it wasn't willing to devote resources equivalent to one investigative reporting team to the problem. http://twitter.com/... Fatemeh Khatibloo / @fatemehx2 : Much like when the news about PRISM originally broke, implicating only Verizon, it's fairly ridiculous to assume that there aren't dozens more “insights and analytics” firms using #facebook data in unsanctioned ways. http://twitter.com/... Zeynep Tufekci / @zeynep : I'd be surprised if every person who was on Facebook by 2015 didn't have their data siphoned this way, and still floating out there in many databases. There may have been thousands, hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—of apps with this kind of access. http://twitter.com/... @dellcam : This is Facebook's SOP. I reported on several companies providing FB/Instagram data to law enforcement in 2016. (See: Snaptrends) FB would only take action after I provided them proof & told them I was going to print. http://twitter.com/... Christina Wilkie / @christinawilkie : Facebook told CNBC that it can't control whether or not companies lie to their users about what they do with personal information. Both Cambridge companies told users their quiz data would be used only for academic research. Instead, iit was sold to campaigns and marketers. http://twitter.com/... @d1gi : pic.twitter.com/Alj7wskwLi @d1gi : CubeYou, a reseller of academic FB user data (Apply Magic Sauce) was suspended from Facebook *after CNBC showed them the quizzes* https://www.cnbc.com/... Privacy Matters / @privacymatters : A thread from two weeks ago on Apply Magic Sauce - Cambridge Uni and now this: Facebook suspends another data analytics firm after CNBC discovers it was using tactics like Cambridge Analytica http://www.cnbc.com/... http://twitter.com/... Brian McClendon / @bmcclendon : The headline “CNBC discovers” is a serious problem for Facebook. There's _no_reason FB couldn't have audited all of the usage of its “platform API” to and review the apps. http://www.cnbc.com/...
Scoop: Facebook has suspended a second data firm, @Cubeyou, after CNBC's @MishCastillo discovered tactics similar to those of Cambridge Analytica. http://www.cnbc.com/...
Zuckerberg: “We are shocked - SHOCKED I TELL YOU - that our platform was once again used exactly as it was designed. Millions of people had their private data tricked out of them, which was then sold to sleazy marketers. How dare CubeYou. That's OUR business model!”
CubeYou also used Facebook quizzes to suck in vast amounts of private user data that was then sold to advertisers. Despite the rolling scandal, it took CNBC's story to get them shut down. Facebook is a tire fire of privacy abuses. Nuke it from orbit. https://www.cnbc.com/...
If this is what Zuckerberg intends to tell Congress — that Facebook can't police Apps that use fraudulent means to get Facebook users to divulge personal information — it's going to be a very long couple of days. http://twitter.com/...
CubeYou, a reseller of academic FB user data (Apply Magic Sauce) was suspended from Facebook *after CNBC showed them the quizzes* https://www.cnbc.com/...
Meaning that CubeYou used Facebook's account recovery “side door” aka did bulk FB user-matching by phone number and email address to build its enriched PII database
Facebook is suspending another data analytics firm called CubeYou after CNBC notified FB that CubeYou was collecting info about users through quizzes misleadingly labeled “for non-profit academic research,” then shared user info w/marketers. http://www.cnbc.com/...
Note that Facebook failed to discover this on its own. I.e, it wasn't willing to devote resources equivalent to one investigative reporting team to the problem. http://twitter.com/...
Much like when the news about PRISM originally broke, implicating only Verizon, it's fairly ridiculous to assume that there aren't dozens more “insights and analytics” firms using #facebook data in unsanctioned ways. http://twitter.com/...
I'd be surprised if every person who was on Facebook by 2015 didn't have their data siphoned this way, and still floating out there in many databases. There may have been thousands, hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—of apps with this kind of access. http://twitter.com/...
This is Facebook's SOP. I reported on several companies providing FB/Instagram data to law enforcement in 2016. (See: Snaptrends) FB would only take action after I provided them proof & told them I was going to print. http://twitter.com/...
Facebook told CNBC that it can't control whether or not companies lie to their users about what they do with personal information. Both Cambridge companies told users their quiz data would be used only for academic research. Instead, iit was sold to campaigns and marketers. http:…
A thread from two weeks ago on Apply Magic Sauce - Cambridge Uni and now this: Facebook suspends another data analytics firm after CNBC discovers it was using tactics like Cambridge Analytica http://www.cnbc.com/... http://twitter.com/...
The headline “CNBC discovers” is a serious problem for Facebook. There's _no_reason FB couldn't have audited all of the usage of its “platform API” to and review the apps. http://www.cnbc.com/...