The social media giant Facebook is under criminal investigation for
Another legal headache for Facebook: A federal grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records related to the social network’s data-sharing partnerships with other big tech companies. With @AllMattNYT and @gabrieldance. https://t.co/y7Y0V43kD7
— Michael LaForgia (@laforgia_) March 13, 2019
The New York Times reported Wednesday evening that a federal grand jury in New York issued subpoenas to the company at some point over the last few months, though, as the Times pointed out, it was unclear exactly when.
What is clear, however, is that Facebook’s data sharing deals violated users’ privacy and that the activity may rise to the standard of criminality. It’s possible that the deals violated the terms of a 2011 consent decree the company made with the Federal Trade Commission.
Per the Times report:
The sharing deals empowered Microsoft’s Bing search engine to map out the friends of virtually all Facebook users without their explicit consent, and allowed Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends. Apple was able to hide from Facebook users all indicators that its devices were even asking for data.
The report capped a very bad day for Facebook after the
Facebook, Amazon, and Google have vast power over our economy and democracy. They’ve bulldozed competition and tilted the playing field in their favor. Time to break up these companies so they don’t have so much power over everyone else. #BreakUpBigTech https://t.co/2rWT0wJ8vD
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) March 8, 2019
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