Facebook data privacy scandal: A cheat sheet (failures in ensuring privacy for user data)

LASER_oneXM

Level 37
Thread author
Verified
Top Poster
Well-known
Feb 4, 2016
2,520
Read about the saga of Facebook's failures in ensuring privacy for user data, including how it relates to Cambridge Analytica, the GDPR, the Brexit campaign, and the 2016 US presidential election.

A decade of apparent indifference for data privacy at Facebook has culminated in revelations that organizations harvested user data for targeted advertising, particularly political advertising, to apparent success. While the most well-known offender is Cambridge Analytica—the political consulting and strategic communication firm behind the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign, as well as Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign—other companies have likely used similar tactics to collect personal data of Facebook users.

TechRepublic's cheat sheet about the Facebook data privacy scandal covers the ongoing controversy surrounding the illicit use of profile information. This article will be updated as more information about this developing story comes to the forefront. (Editor's note: TechRepublic Senior Writer Dan Patterson contributed to this article.)

What is the timeline of the Facebook data privacy scandal?

Facebook has more than a decade-long track record of incidents highlighting inadequate and insufficient measures to protect data privacy. While the severity of these individual cases varies, the sequence of repeated failures paints a larger picture of systemic problems.

In 2005, researchers at MIT created a script that downloaded publicly posted information of over 70,000 users from four schools. (Facebook only began to allow search engines to crawl profiles in September 2007.)

In 2007, activities that users engaged in on other websites was automatically added to Facebook user profiles as part of Beacon, one of Facebook's first attempts to monetize user profiles. As an example, Beacon indicated on the Facebook News Feed the titles of videos that users rented from Blockbuster Video, which was a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act. A class action suit was filed, for which Facebook paid $9.5 million to a fund for privacy and security as part of a settlement agreement.

In 2011, following an FTC investigation, the company entered into a consent decree, promising to address concerns about how user data was tracked and shared. That investigation was prompted by an incident in December 2009 in which information thought private by users was being shared publicly, according to contemporaneous reporting by The New York Times.
 

About us

  • MalwareTips is a community-driven platform providing the latest information and resources on malware and cyber threats. Our team of experienced professionals and passionate volunteers work to keep the internet safe and secure. We provide accurate, up-to-date information and strive to build a strong and supportive community dedicated to cybersecurity.

User Menu

Follow us

Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to know first about the latest cybersecurity incidents and malware threats.

Top