The New York Times reports that federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into Facebook's data deals with major electronics manufacturers.The newspaper says a grand jury in New York has subpoenaed information from at least two companies known for making smartphones and other devices, citing two unnamed people familiar with the request.It reports that both companies had data partnerships with Facebook that gave them access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of users.Facebook describes those data deals as innocuous efforts to help smartphone makers provide Facebook features to users before the social network had its own app.The Times reports that it is not clear when the inquiry began or exactly what it is focusing on. Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. … [Read more...] about Probe into Facebook data deals
Facebook working again after global outage
Social media giant Facebook is running again for users after prolonged issues worldwide. The issues affected people accessing Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram and Messenger from about 6am today (NZ time). Other users had been able to get into Facebook, but couldn't post or reply to anyone. Facebook responded to concerns this morning, saying that some users may encounter challenges accessing the site as it was down for "required maintenance". Downdetector.com, a site that monitors site outages, said the Facebook problem also affected parts of the United States including the East and West Coast as well as parts of Europe and elsewhere, AP reports. Facebook did not say what was causing the problem. Via its Twitter account, Facebook said the outage was not due to a "distributed denial of service" or DDoS attack, a type of attack that hackers use to interrupt service to a site. Social media users took to Twitter to express their frustrations - and to mock Facebook. Among those … [Read more...] about Facebook working again after global outage
Facebook reportedly under criminal investigation for secret data-sharing deals
Federal prosecutors are probing Facebook's illicit data-sharing partnerships, reportedly subpoenaing data from smartphone manufacturers as the regulatory walls appear to close in on the beleaguered social media firm. A New York grand jury has subpoenaed two device-makers' records as part of a criminal investigation into some of the 150+ dubiously legal data partnerships Facebook forged with technology companies and other large corporations, according to sources familiar with the requests who spoke to the New York Times. "We are cooperating with investigators and take those probes seriously," a Facebook spokesman said in a statement, adding, "We've provided public testimony, answered questions and pledged that we will continue to do so." Also on rt.com 150+ firms, incl Netflix & Spotify thrived on Facebook user data under secretive partnership – media Facebook's secretive data-sharing partnerships allegedly allowed tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Spotify … [Read more...] about Facebook reportedly under criminal investigation for secret data-sharing deals
Facebook suffers service outages in areas worldwide
Facebook said Wednesday that some of its core products, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, have experienced service outages in some areas around the world, Trend reported citing Xinhua. Facebook users across the globe reported problems logging into their accounts or sharing posts on its website, as some people were not able to refresh feeds or post new files. "Instagram was down for a few hours so here I am... I'm tired of waiting," said Twitter user [email protected] in her twitter account. Facebook acknowledged the service outage in a tweet Wednesday but gave little information about the problems that happened to its apps. "We're aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps," Facebook said. The world's largest social media network added that it focused on working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. It confirmed that the issue is not related to a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on its platform or servers, without … [Read more...] about Facebook suffers service outages in areas worldwide
Facebook Instagram outage brings the conversation to Twitter
Kelly Tyko USA TODAY Published 11:17 PM EDT Mar 13, 2019 The common theme to social media outages is to jump on another network to vent. As with nearly every Facebook outage, users headed to Twitter on Wednesday with the hashtag #FacebookDown quickly becoming the top trending topic in the United States. Facebook started having problems at around noon EDT, with issues popping up across Facebook proper, Facebook Messenger and Instagram around the world. #InstagramDown also was trending Wednesday. Some users of Facebook-owned WhatsApp reported having issues sending photos on the popular messaging app. There were fewer tweets Wednesday for #WhatsAppDown. And some tweets used all of three of the hashtags. One Twitter user, @InstaDown, who's name is listed as "Is Instagram Still Down?" tweeted more than 10 times Wednesday. Facebook outage: Facebook, Instagram go down around the world in apparent outage, but back up for some College cheating scam: Felicity Huffman and Lori … [Read more...] about Facebook Instagram outage brings the conversation to Twitter