Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users and Friends

Re:Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users ... by pjc50 on Monday June 04, 2018 @05:46AM (#17226134)

> Facebook allowed the device companies access to the data of users’ friends without their explicit consent, even after declaring that it would no longer share such information with outsiders. Some device makers could retrieve personal information even from users’ friends who believed they had barred any sharing, The New York Times found.

There's a dangling "their" in there which is causing trouble. What I think this means:

- Alice adds their email or phone number to their Facebook account. Alice sets this to "private".

- Bob is friends with Alice

- Bob's phone has access to Alice's phone/email, even though this wouldn't be normally visible to him.

(The Windows Phone social media integration in the contact maanger was absolutely excellent at presenting everything about your friends on every platform in one convenient place)

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Re:Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users ... by makomk on Monday June 04, 2018 @06:29AM (#17226378)

I don't think that's right. They clarify this somewhat further into the article. "Facebook’s view that the device makers are not outsiders lets the partners go even further, The Times found: They can obtain data about a user’s Facebook friends, even those who have denied Facebook permission to share information with any third parties." I'm pretty sure this is a reference to the setting which disabled sharing information with Facebook apps used by friends. If I'm understanding correctly, it's more like this:

- Alice adds their email or phone number to their Facebook account. Alice sets this to be visible to friends, but not to third-party apps they use.

- Bob is friends with Alice.

- Bob's phone has access to Alice's phone/email, even though this wouldn't normally be available to third-party Facebook apps like games.

Edit: Facebook's response at https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-th... also clarifies this. "Contrary to claims by the New York Times, friends’ information, like photos, was only accessible on devices when people made a decision to share their information with those friends."

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