The company has admitted to letting outside companies access private messages, including Spotify and Netflix.
Yikes.
It started when the New York Times reported on how Facebook shares user data with partners, and the company admitted it had given third-party companies extensive access to messages.
The company insists that they did this to users could log into the services (like Spotify and Netflix) with their Facebook account, and send messages through the app.
In a blog post, the company wrote:
"Did partners get access to messages? Yes. But people had to explicitly sign in to Facebook first to use a partner’s messaging feature. Take Spotify for example. After signing in to your Facebook account in Spotify’s desktop app, you could then send and receive messages without ever leaving the app. Our API provided partners with access to the person’s messages in order to power this type of feature.
"To put it simply, this work was about helping people do two things. First, people could access their Facebook accounts or specific Facebook features on devices and platforms built by other companies like Apple, Amazon, Blackberry and Yahoo.
"These are known as integration partners. Second, people could have more social experiences – like seeing recommendations from their Facebook friends – on other popular apps and websites, like Netflix, The New York Times, Pandora and Spotify."
Spotify could apparently see the messages of more than 70 million Facebook users a MONTH.
The Times reported that Spotify and Netflix could read, write, and even delete people’s messages.
COOL STORY!