Facebook ends Microsoft, Sony access to friend data

WASHINGTON: Facebook confirmed on Wednesday it will pay $5 billion to resolve a Federal Trade Commission investigation of its privacy practices and said it was ending access to friend data by Microsoft and Sony as a first step under the settlement.

Facebook said the data was related to using the social media site on an earlier generation PlayStation or to sync friends’ contact information with another service. “This was our mistake, and we are correcting it,” the company said.

Facebook said the FTC settlement will require a “fundamental shift in way we approach our work.”

Here’s What Facebook is Doing

Facebook says it is running a review of apps on its platform and removing significant portions of our existing platform API. In conjunction with this ongoing work, we will continue to take further steps to secure and increase the integrity of the Platform overall, for example:

Facebook  introduced a new suite of controls for people to manage the apps they use with Facebook.

Here’s What to Expect Going Forward

Under the new framework required by the FTC,  Facebook will be accountable and transparent about fixing old products that don’t work the way they should and building new products to a higher standard. This means we will inevitably find more examples of where our products can be improved — where data access can be restricted — and we’ll work swiftly to address issues when they surface.