Facebook claims it shared data with Netflix, Spotify with user permission

Facebook says that the preferential data access was given to these apps with user permission. Facebook Inc said it did not give some companies access to people’s data without their permission, after the New York Times reported on Tuesday that the social network allowed some large technology companies greater access to user data. Facebook also gave companies like Netflix and Spotify the ability to read users’ private messages and permitted Amazon to obtain users’ names and contact information through their friends, the New York Times said. Facebook said what it did was to help users access their Facebook accounts or specific features on devices and platforms built by other companies like Apple, Amazon, Blackberry, and Yahoo, known as integration partners. Earlier this month, a British lawmaker released documents that revealed Facebook offered some companies, including Netflix and Airbnb, access to data about users’ friends it did not make available to most other apps in 2015.