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Facebook details strident response after UK document release

Dec. 05, 2018 2:02 PM ETMeta Platforms, Inc. (META) StockMETABy: Jason Aycock, SA News Editor33 Comments
  • In its detailed published response to today's UK release of documents, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) says it stands by changes it made in 2014-2015, suggesting that the lack of a granted extension back then for litigant Six4Three has led to today's furor.
  • Those changes prevented people from sharing friends' information with developers like Six4Three, which developed an app called Pikinis -- and some short-term extensions to that policy were granted, to keep some apps from breaking while they updated. "Pikinis didn't receive an extension, and they went to court."
  • It notes that there's a difference between friends' data and friend lists, and "In some situations, when necessary, we allowed developers to access a list of the users’ friends. This was not friends’ private information but a list of your friends (name and profile pic)."
  • As for charging developers (via ad purchases) for access to data: "We explored multiple ways to build a sustainable business with developers who were building apps that were useful to people. But instead of requiring developers to buy advertising – the option discussed in these cherrypicked emails – we ultimately settled on a model where developers did not need to purchase advertising to access APIs and we continued to provide the developer platform for free."
  • As for targeting competitor apps, it says years ago it decided to restrict apps built on the platform that replicated core functionality. "These kind of restrictions are common across the tech industry with different platforms having their own variant including YouTube, Twitter, Snap and Apple." It says it's decided to "remove this out-of-date policy so that our platform remains as open as possible."
  • Damian Collins -- the UK lawmaker that's head of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee -- said today that he believed there was "considerable public interest" in releasing the documents, which "raise important questions about how Facebook treats users data, their policies for working with app developers, and how they exercise their dominant position in the social media market."
  • "We don’t feel we have had straight answers from Facebook on these important issues," he says, calling for a "more public debate about the rights of social media users and the smaller businesses who are required to work with the tech giants."
  • Previously: Facebook fights back on "cherrypicked" documents (Dec. 05 2018)
  • Previously: UK releases Facebook mails addressing prospect of selling data (Dec. 05 2018)

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