The
2018 hits just keep on coming for Mr. Zuckerberg, the embattled
CEO of Facebook apparently. After he was named the man who lost
most money in 2018 by various business newspapers yesterday only,
today the revelation is that between 2012 and 2014 his company
certainly considered selling private user’s data to advertisers, a
fact he has always strongly denied.
Internal emails submitted in UK court filings provided an
interesting window into heavily redacted internal Facebook
documents. A British lawmaker plans to release the documents next
week.
The technology giant was at the time apparently looking into the
possibility of asking advertisers for more money in exchange for
access to additional information about users (as evidenced by the
content of said e-mails). If true, that would have been a radical
break with the policy never to resell user data.
The internal e-mails are part of a series of internal
communications intercepted by British parliamentarians.
Related coverage:
Facebook
Scandal - Soros Wants US Congress To Investigate After Sandberg
Lies Exposed.
In one case, an employee suggested shutting down data access
unless companies spent “$250k a year to maintain access.”
Facebook says that the heavily redacted documents are very old and
that the company ultimately decided not to sell the data.
— The Verge (@verge)
November
29, 2018
“We were trying to figure out how to build a sustainable
business,” a Facebook spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal who
first reported the story “We had a lot of internal conversations
about how we could do this.”
Cambridge
Analytica
The documents were found in the aftermath of the scandal
surrounding the data processing company Cambridge Analytica, which
received the data from millions of users via the
thisisyourdigitallife app.
That data was then allegedly used for Donald Trump's election
campaign and pro-Brexit campaigns.
FB
staff discussed selling access to user data in 2012. Big
question is who. If Mark & execs, this looks very
hypocritical. Even if just junior employees, the brainstorming
will now become a huge debacle.
https://t.co/zi88q8LMem
— Josh Constine (@JoshConstine)
November
29, 2018
Facebook boss Zuckerberg had to explain his company’s behavior
before the US Congress. "I can not be clearer on this topic," the
CEO stated, "We do not sell data, that's not how advertising
works."
Just last week, it was revealed that Facebook hired a PR company
this year to smear Apple and George Soros in order to deflect
attention away from their own business scandals.
Source:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/29/18117582/facebook-six4three-internal-documents-emails-selling-user-data
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