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Following a flopped IPO in 2012, Facebook desperately trying to find new ways to make money. An employee of unknown rank sent an internal email suggesting Facebook charge developers $ 250,000 per year for access to its platform APIs to create applications that allow users to access their data. Employees also discussed the offer of extended access to Tinder on data of their friends who were removed from the platform in exchange for "Moments" trademark, which Facebook wanted to use for a photo sharing application launched later. Facebook has decided not to sell API access and has entered into no agreement with Tinder or other companies, including Amazon and Royal Bank of Canada, mentioned in e-mails employees.
The talks were reported by The Wall Street Journal as part of a sealed court document that its reporters had reviewed following a lawsuit from the Six4Three bikini photo apps developer against Facebook alleging anti-competitive practices in the way it changed the platform in 2014 to restrict friend data via the platform.
The biggest question is who ranks the employees who discussed these ideas. While senior executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, were seriously considering these ideas, this revelation may be contrary to the company's long-standing philosophy of not selling data access. Zuckerberg told the April congress that "I can not be clearer on this subject: we do not sell data". If the discussion took place between grassroots employees, it might just be a spontaneous suggestion, like Facebook throwing ideas against the wall, and may have been dismissed or ignored by the superiors. But anyway, now that the discussion has flown, it could validate the biggest fears of the public about Facebook and determine if it is a worthy guardian of our personal data.
An employee sent an email to other people about the possibility of removing access to the platform API "at one time to all applications that do not spend … at at least $ 250,000 a year to maintain access to the data, "says the document. Facebook told TechCrunch that these discussions were about API access and not about selling data directly to companies. The fact that the discussions specifically focused on API access, which Facebook continues to give free to developers, has not been reported before.
Facebook has provided this complete statement to TechCrunch:
"As we have said time and time again, the documents gathered by Six4Three for this baseless case are only part of the story and are misleadingly presented without additional context. The evidence has been sealed by a California court and we can not refute all the false accusations. That said, we are maintaining the changes made to the platform in 2015 to prevent someone from sharing their friends' data with the developers. Any short-term extension granted during this platform transition should prevent changes from disrupting the user experience. To be clear, Facebook has never sold data to anyone. Our APIs have always been free and we have never asked developers to pay for them, either directly or by buying advertising. "
Half a decade later, with the global will against Facebook, discussions on the sale of data access could not be worse for society. Even if quickly dropped, the idea could now fuel concerns that Facebook has too much power and too much of our personal information. Although the company has finally found more money generators and has become very profitable, the discussions show how Facebook could exploit people's data more aggressively if it thought it necessary.
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