In the wake of Facebooks platform-wide outage on Wednesday that affected all of its 2.3 billion monthly users,there was more bad news on the horizon for the social media giant. The original York Times is reporting that federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation of the company’s trade practices, focusing particularly on data-sharing deals it forged with several tech companies. The companies that are being most closely scrutinized were identified by two anonymous sources as “at least two prominent makers of smartphones and other devices” that have formed partnerships with Facebook to gain access to the personal data of hundreds of millions of Facebook users.
Over 150 companies allegedly have deals along these lines with Facebook, or including Amazon,Apple, Sony, or Microsoft,having formed partnerships which allow those companies to see who a Facebook user’s friends are, their contact information, and other personal data,often without the explicit consent of the user.
Click here to continue and read more...
Source: inquisitr.com