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Facebook is suspending a data analytics firm called CubeYou from the platform after CNBC notified the company that CubeYou was collecting information about users through quizzes.
CubeYou misleadingly labeled its quizzes "for non-profit academic research," then shared user information with marketers. The scenario is eerily similar to how Cambridge Analytica received unauthorized access to data from as many as 87 million Facebook user accounts to target political marketing.
The company sold data that had been collected by researchers working with the Psychometrics Lab at Cambridge University, similar to how Cambridge Analytica used information it obtained from other professors at the school for political marketing.
The CubeYou discovery suggests that collecting data from quizzes and using it for marketing purposes was far from an isolated incident. Moreover, the fact that CubeYou was able to mislabel the purpose of the quizzes — and that Facebook did nothing to stop it until CNBC pointed out the problem — suggests the platform has little control over this activity.
Facebook, however, disputed the implication that it can't exercise proper oversight over these types of apps, telling CNBC that it can't control information that companies mislabel. Upon being notified of CubeYou's alleged violations, Facebook said it would suspend all CubeYou's apps until a further audit could be completed.
"These are serious claims and we have suspended CubeYou from Facebook while we investigate them," Ime Archibong, Facebook vice president of product partnerships, said in a statement.
Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:
https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=Big+Data.
CubeYou misleadingly labeled its quizzes "for non-profit academic research," then shared user information with marketers. The scenario is eerily similar to how Cambridge Analytica received unauthorized access to data from as many as 87 million Facebook user accounts to target political marketing.
The company sold data that had been collected by researchers working with the Psychometrics Lab at Cambridge University, similar to how Cambridge Analytica used information it obtained from other professors at the school for political marketing.
The CubeYou discovery suggests that collecting data from quizzes and using it for marketing purposes was far from an isolated incident. Moreover, the fact that CubeYou was able to mislabel the purpose of the quizzes — and that Facebook did nothing to stop it until CNBC pointed out the problem — suggests the platform has little control over this activity.
Facebook, however, disputed the implication that it can't exercise proper oversight over these types of apps, telling CNBC that it can't control information that companies mislabel. Upon being notified of CubeYou's alleged violations, Facebook said it would suspend all CubeYou's apps until a further audit could be completed.
"These are serious claims and we have suspended CubeYou from Facebook while we investigate them," Ime Archibong, Facebook vice president of product partnerships, said in a statement.
Learn more / En savoir plus / Mehr erfahren:
https://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?&tag=Big+Data.