Facebook sued over App Center data sharing in Germany

December 07, 2012

German consumer organizations are suing Facebook because the social network keeps sharing personal data with third-party app makers without getting explicit consent from users. Third party apps often want access to a users’ chat as well as information about friends, personal contact information and the ability to post on a user’s Facebook wall. But instead of asking users for permission, the apps available through Facebook’s App Center just grant themselves access to the data, the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV), said on Thursday. Consent for such comprehensive data forwarding to the app provider was never provided by the user, the VZBV said. “Reason enough for the federation to start a new lawsuit against Facebook Ireland at the regional court in Berlin,” it said. Facebook Ireland is responsible for all Facebook’s activities outside of the U.S. and Canada. The social network’s data protection practices worsened instead of improved when App Center was introduced in July, VZBV said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2018981/facebook-sued-over-app-center-data-sharing-in-germany.html