Facebook admitted that for many years it did share its users' data with more than 150 businesses, including Amazon, Netflix, Spotify and Yahoo. But it denies giving such access without users' consent.
That admission came in response to a report from The New York Times, which said it got a hold of internal Facebook records that lay out what types of data-sharing deals the social media company had with its business partners.
For example, the Times says Bing, Microsoft's search engine, was allowed to "see the names of virtually all Facebook users' friends without consent." And Spotify and Netflix were reportedly given access to users' private messages.
Netflix told news outlets that it never requested access to those private messages or actually combed through any during the duration it partnered with Facebook.
Facebook's no longer partnering with a lot of the businesses named in the Times report.
But the big question is whether Facebook violated an agreement it has with the Federal Trade Commission to not share user data without their expressed consent. Facebook's privacy director told the Times it didn't, since it views these so-called "integration partners" as an extension of itself.
It went a step further on its blog Tuesday, saying no company had access to a user's personal information without their permission.
Additional reporting from Newsy affiliate CNN.
