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Facebook Defends Itself Against New York Times Report On Data-Sharing

The New York Times published a report Sunday outlining the scope of data-sharing deals it says Facebook has in place with dozens of phone-makers.

Facebook Defends Itself Against New York Times Report On Data-Sharing

By: Katherine Biek

Posted

Facebook is once again defending itself over how it handles users' personal data.

The company pushed back against a New York Times report published Sunday that said the social network shared large amounts of user data with phone- and device-makers.

The Times said Facebook also gave device-makers "access to the data of users' friends without their explicit consent, even after declaring that it would no longer share such information with outsiders."

In a blog post, Facebook said it struck these deals over the past decade to help companies build Facebook apps for their specific phones or operating systems.

Facebook's vice president of product partnerships said the agreements were written in such a way that the companies could only use the data to build the apps and that it "was not aware of any abuse by these companies."

The Federal Trade Commission is already investigating Facebook data practices following news that Cambridge Analytica accessed about 87 million Facebook users' information without their explicit consent.

Additional content from Newsy affiliate CNN.