Indeed. And the privacy policy says:

> Sharing data with third parties

> We do not disclose an individual user’s data to third parties unless (1) you have given explicit consent to each such disclosure, (2) we are required to comply with a legal obligation or (3) if our business or assets, or parts of them, are acquired by a third party. [...]

Then goes on:

> Third parties will be bound by applicable data protection legislation and/or this privacy policy concerning the disclosed data.

Well, of course they will be bound by data protection legislation, which makes me feel the whole sentence is disingenuous and meant to give you the warm fuzzies while meaning nothing at all.

Facebook is starting to unbundle their apps, so the standalone commitment may be true. Instagram has remained standalone. They're separating their messaging app into its own app.

I was referring to the data internal sharing, rather than the apps staying individual.

It would be easy to keep it working standalone while still allowing it to automatically integrate itself with facebook (whether you like it or not) if you are logged in to that in the same browser session.

Though I suppose anyone genuinely bothered by that (rather than just sounding off) won't be using facebook at all anyway.

Perhaps they are just trying to leverage people's personal data. See social trends, etc.

Yeah, you brought up a good point. Does "no plans to commingle data with Facebook" mean "your Moves data won't show up on your wall" or does it mean "Facebook Inc will not use Moves data to build your dossier" ?

I think it just means "we haven't yet made the plan of how we will commingle the data with Facebook, the meeting for that is scheduled for next week; once we've made those plans and are ready to implement them, we'll announce it as a shiny new feature."

You are probably right, however other reasons for buying them might be acquiring talent, or having access to technology that is either patented / expensive to develop independently.