On Sunday, the social network Facebook, signed agreements to share data with at least 60 device manufacturers, increasing concerns about the rights that users of the social network give, the newspaper The New York Times reported.
This time in a scheme that also involves technology manufacturers such as Apple, Amazon and Samsung for more than a decade.
In his first reaction, Mark Zuckerberg's company acknowledged the existence of the agreements, but assured that there was nothing scandalous and rejected the newspaper report according to which he provided information about its users and their friends to third parties.
But these agreements generate, at least, a series of questions about the way in which Facebook obtains "consent" from its users to share data, which could constitute a violation of a 2011 decree of the United States Federal Trade Commission. .
Specifically, concerns have arisen similar to those aroused by the recent scandal at Cambridge Analytica, the consultancy that obtained information on more than 80 million Facebook profiles without the owners' knowledge, and used that data to generate "dirty campaigns" in several electoral processes.
According to the Times report, device manufacturers obtained email addresses, telephone numbers and personal data of users who used Facebook from their products, as well as their friends, without expressing consent, Infobae said.
When the Cambridge Analytica scandal came out, that through an application he developed for Facebook, he took the data of millions, Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of the social network, must have even appeared before the United States Congress.
"Undoubtedly, it seems that Zuckerberg lied to Congress when he said that users have 'complete control' over who sees the information on Facebook," said Rep. David Cicillene on Twitter. "This must be investigated and those responsible must be held accountable," he added.
Facebook has said that it allowed smartphones to access their information long before apps became po[CENSORED]r, to make the social network available on different devices.
This allowed hardware developers to create their own programs including Facebook functions and automatically obtaining information from the social network, once the user entered their account.
In the case of Apple, the iconic company that makes the iPhone said that it used this feature to allow users of your product to share photos and other items on the social network without the need to have another app. The function was canceled in September.
Facebook also announced in April that all these agreements would be stopped, although to date it only did so with 22.
But there are still serious doubts about the company's actions and why these agreements were still working in 2018, when it was alleged that they covered a lack of options 10 years ago.
It is not clear, either, if these had been written off had the Cambridge Analytica scandal not existed, which focused attention on the unethical practices of Zuckerberg's company, but also on the business model of social networks and great part of the technological companies that offer services on the internet.
For its part, the universal communication company, Facebook, rejected what the Times said about the program it developed 10 years ago to introduce the social network into devices such as the iPhone. Ime Archibong, vice president in charge of partnerships, said that Facebook retained strict control of the technology, called programming application interfaces (API) and that it does not know of any abuse committed by the companies with which associated
Some device manufacturers, the Times said, could obtain personal information about users and their friends, even if they believed they had prohibited the dissemination of their data.
Archibong said partner companies had signed agreements that prohibited the use of user information except to recreate Facebook-style experiences. And the information was only accessible in the artifacts when the user decided to make the information known to his friends, he said.
The APIs in this case are very different from those used by Cambridge Analytica, said Archibong. Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica before the complaints, and the consultant has been dissolved.