Facebook disputes report it grants phone makers data access

Bloomberg

Facebook Inc. is disputing a New York Times report about how it shares data with device makers from Apple and Amazon to Samsung. They’re privy to Facebook users’ information but it’s nothing like the access that led to the Cambridge Analytica controversy, the social network said.
The New York Times reported Facebook had struck deals with device manufacturers that allowed them full access to information on users and their friends. But the US company contends those pacts were intended to help device makers create their own versions of Facebook apps, and the data mostly remained on phones that accessed it.
That kind of arrangement was necessary before phone operating systems relied on app stores, it added.
Facebook and other internet companies are grappling with a global backlash over the extent to which they hoover up and handle user data. The New York Times said the vast amounts of information shared with Apple Inc. and other phone-makers included data on users’ friends that had supposedly barred access.
Facebook said it had begun dismantling pacts with device makers dating back as much as a decade — when the social network was rarely directly installed on phones. Hardware manufacturers used Facebook’s software tools to allow their own users to access contacts or post photos to their profiles, among other things, the company said in a blog post.
“There were no app stores at the time and this was the only way to make our product work on their devices. We tightly controlled these APIs from the get-go,” Ime Archibong, Facebook’s vice president of product partnerships, said in an interview.