By Deepa Seetharaman and Kirsten Grind
Facebook Inc. struck customized data-sharing deals that gave
select companies special access to user records well after the
point in 2015 that the social network has said it walled off that
information, according to court documents, company officials and
people familiar with the matter.
Some of the agreements, known internally as "whitelists," also
allowed certain companies to access additional information about a
user's Facebook friends, the people familiar with the matter said.
That included information like phone numbers and a metric called
"friend link" that measured the degree of closeness between users
and others in their network, the people said.
The whitelist deals were struck with companies including Royal
Bank of Canada and Nissan Motor Co., who advertised on Facebook or
were valuable for other reasons, according to some of the people
familiar with the matter. They show that Facebook gave special data
access to a broader universe of companies than was previously
disclosed. They also raise further questions about who has access
to the data of billions of Facebook users and why they had access,
at a time when Congress is demanding the company be held
accountable for the flow of that data.
Many of these customized deals were separate from Facebook's
data-sharing partnerships with at least 60 device makers, which it
disclosed this week. Several lawmakers and regulators have said
those device-maker arrangements merit further investigation.
Facebook officials said the company struck a small number of
deals with developers largely to improve the user experience, test
new features and allow certain partners to wind down previously
existing data-sharing projects. The company said it allowed a
"small number" of partners to access data about a user's friends
after the data was shut off to developers in 2015. Many of the
extensions lasted weeks and months, Facebook said. It isn't clear
when all of the deals ultimately expired or how many companies got
extensions.
The vast majority of developers who plugged into Facebook's
platform weren't aware that the company offered this preferred
access or extensions to certain partners, according to the people
familiar with the matter.
Ime Archibong, Facebook's vice president of product
partnerships, said in an interview Friday that the company
maintained a "consistent and principled approach to how we work
with developers over the course of the past 11 years."
Mr. Archibong added that were some cases where the company
worked "more closely" with individual developers to test new
features or when winding down products. "But we have been
extremely, I would say, persistent and objective around how we
worked with developers," he added.
Privacy experts said Facebook users likely didn't know how their
data was being shared. "I don't think anyone would have a
reasonable understanding of how widespread this was," said David
Vladeck, director of the Federal Trade Commission's Consumer
Protection Bureau from 2009 until 2013 and now a professor at
Georgetown Law.
Mr. Vladeck said any deals made after 2012 could draw scrutiny
about whether Facebook was in violation of its settlement that year
with the FTC, under which the company is required to give the
social network's users clear and prominent notice and obtain their
express consent before sharing their information beyond their
privacy settings. Facebook said Friday it hasn't violated the
settlement.
The revelations come as Facebook is dealing with the fallout in
March related to the use of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, a
political analytics firm that aided President Donald Trump's 2016
presidential campaign and purchased data on 87 million users from
another developer. The crisis sparked questions about Facebook's
lax oversight of its platform, an FTC probe into whether the
company violated the 2012 settlement and two congressional
appearances by Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in
April.
In his testimony before Congress, Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook
moved to eliminate broad access to information about users' friends
in 2014. Developers had until May 2015 to comply with the rules.
The move was a harsh blow to developers, forcing a number of apps
to shut down without access to the data. Others had to find
workaround solutions to continue operating.
On Friday, the company acknowledged that a subset of companies
were given extensions beyond May 2015.
"As we were winding down over the year, there was a small number
of companies that asked for short-term extensions, and that, we
worked through with them," Facebook's Mr. Archibong said. "But
other than that, things were shut down."
Facebook's relationships to outside developers have shifted over
time as it made key adjustments to how it shares data.
In 2007, Facebook started allowing developers to tap its
so-called social graph, including crucial information about a
user's friends. Unlike advertisers, developers didn't have to pay
for this information, giving rise to a new generation of startups
built on social connections.
This arrangement also made Facebook increasingly central to its
users' daily lives, despite objections from privacy groups and some
users about potential abuses of that data. By 2014, developers
could access about 30 different data points about users' friends,
including places they checked into, education history and religious
and political affiliation.
Early on, Facebook brokered special deals with certain
companies, some people with knowledge of the deals said.
"Ninety-nine percent of developers were treated the same, but 1%
got special treatment because they accounted for all the value of
the platform," one former Facebook employee said, referring to
popular apps and services that attracted users.
Eventually, Facebook set up internal teams dedicated to
brokering and developing customized data deals.
After Facebook said it would restrict outsiders' access to user
data, several companies approached it about gaining continued
access. One granted an extension was Royal Bank of Canada, which
created an app that allowed RBC users to send money to one another
-- similar to Venmo, a startup now owned by PayPal Inc. RBC was
granted a six-month extension after the May 2015 deadline Facebook
imposed on developers when it shut off data access, an RBC
spokesman said.
"We take seriously our responsibility to protect customer
privacy and we do not share individual client information with
Facebook or other advertisers," the spokesman said.
Nuance Communications, based in Burlington, Mass., was given a
six-month extension to continue accessing user data -- specifically
for a special news feed it had built on behalf of client Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles NV, according to a person familiar with the
matter. The company signed a nondisclosure agreement in return for
the additional access, this person said.
A spokeswoman for Nuance and a spokesman for Fiat declined to
comment.
Separately, some of the data-sharing arrangements with device
makers also involved broad access to information about users'
friends.
This access persisted until as late as this year. Facebook said
it is winding down those deals, some details of which were reported
by the New York Times earlier this week.
A 2012 agreement with Apple Inc. allowed iPhone users to sync
their contacts with their Facebook friends list and import their
friends' phone numbers -- a data point that wasn't available to
most developers who plugged into the Facebook platform, according
to people familiar with the matter. The personal contact
information was kept on users' devices and Apple didn't gain access
to any of that personal data, an Apple spokesman said.
Microsoft Corp. struck a device deal with Facebook shortly after
the software giant invested $240 million in Facebook ahead of its
2012 initial public offering, according to people familiar with the
matter.
Microsoft often fed that data into its Bing search engine,
allowing users to search Facebook posts of friends, for example, a
feature that wasn't available on the platform more broadly. That
access ended in 2016 -- well after other developers were
restricted, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Facebook said the Apple and Microsoft partnerships were part of
the company's effort to recreate the Facebook experience across
different devices and operating systems.
--Vipal Monga, Eliot Brown and Tripp Mickle contributed to this
article.
Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com and
Kirsten Grind at kirsten.grind@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 08, 2018 19:43 ET (23:43 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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