Facebook Inc said data on most of its 2 billion users could have been accessed improperly, giving fresh evidence of the ways the social-media giant failed to protect people\u2019s privacy while generating billions of dollars in revenue from the information.<\/p>\n
The company said it removed a feature that let users enter phone numbers or email addresses into Facebook\u2019s search tool to find other people. That was being used by malicious actors to scrape public profile information, it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the scale and sophistication of the activity we\u2019ve seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we have now disabled this feature.\u201d<\/p>\n
Facebook also said data on as many as 87 million people, most of them in the US, may have been improperly shared with research firm Cambridge Analytica.<\/p>\n
This is Facebook\u2019s first official confirmation of the possible scope of the data leak, which was previously estimated at roughly 50 million. It has resulted in calls from legislators and policy makers for greater regulation of social media, helping to shave billion of dollars from the company\u2019s market value.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t take a broad enough view of what our responsibility was and that was a huge mistake. It was my mistake,\u201d Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call with reporters. \u201cWe\u2019re broadening our view of our responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg is scheduled to appear before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee on April 10 to discuss Facebook\u2019s role in society and users\u2019 privacy. Australia\u2019s government said it has started a formal investigation into whether Facebook breached the country\u2019s privacy laws.<\/p>\n
He defended the company\u2019s advertising business model, confirmed he wants to stay in charge and disclosed no “meaningful impact” from an online campaign by some users to delete their Facebook accounts. Facebook stock rose almost 3% in extended trading, after closing at $155.10 in New York.<\/p>\n
About 270,000 people downloaded a personality quiz app and shared information about themselves and their friends with a researcher, who then passed along the information to Cambridge Analytica, in a move that Facebook says was against its rules.<\/p>\n
Facebook reached the 87 million figure by adding up all the unique people that those 270,000 users were friends with at the time they gave the app permission. Facebook made the new disclosure in an online posting Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Cambridge Analytica, which worked for Donald Trump\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign, said it licensed data on 30 million people, countering Facebook\u2019s 87 million estimate.<\/p>\n
Cambridge Analytica said in a tweet that it \u201cimmediately deleted the raw data from our file server, and began the process of searching for and removing any of its derivatives in our system\u201d after Facebook contacted them to let them know data had been improperly obtained.<\/p>\n
Facebook says it will tell people, in a notice at the top of their news feeds starting April 9, if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. But it still hasn\u2019t independently confirmed if the firm currently has the data.<\/p>\n
The revelation, and the subsequent media questions, hint at the grilling Zuckerberg will likely face when he testifies on the matter before Congress next week: How many other Cambridge Analytica-scale leaks of data are out there?<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg, in Wednesday\u2019s call, said he couldn\u2019t be sure. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be able to go out and find every single bad use of data, but what we can do is make it a lot harder for folks to do that going forward,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we will be able to uncover a large amount of bad activity that exists.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company has been embroiled in controversy for weeks over the revelation that data was shared and then not deleted.<\/p>\n
It raised questions over the information Facebook compiles on users, makes available to third parties, and what happens to it afterward. Facebook made the announcement along with an update on its plans to restrict data access through its platform.<\/p>\n
Zuckerberg defended gathering user data for a business model that lets advertisers use Facebook\u2019s information and targeting tools to reach specific audiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople tell us that if they\u2019re going to see ads they want the ads to be good,\u201d he said, noting that requires keeping track of what people are interested in.<\/p>\n
Either way, he thinks he should remain at the helm of Facebook. \u201cI think life is about learning from mistakes and figuring out what you need to do to move forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n