FACEBOOK SPYING
For years, Facebook users have been speculating that the social network is snooping on its users' conversations. Many people have said something out loud, only to see adverts for that same thing to appear on Facebook later on.
The last week has seen an immense global backlash following the news that Facebook plans to integrate its three powerhouse messaging platforms - Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram - into one giant data quarry. If anyone was holding out for some tangible reason to fear the data implications of this, then perhaps the news just in that Facebook has been caught paying teens and young adults for (almost) unfettered access to the private data on their phones will be it.
You get the sense with Facebook, that data exploitation, treating the information exchanged by its billions of users, as a legitimate domain within which it can casually, commercially trawl, has become so entrenched in the DNA of the organization that it literally can't help itself. The reports overnight, first broken by TechCrunch, are that "desperate for data on its competitors, Facebook has been secretly paying people to install a 'Facebook Research' VPN that lets the company suck in all of a user’s phone and web activity."
Source: Forbes.com
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