Facebook planned to sell user data in 2012

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook considered selling users’ data to companies some years ago, but later decided to act against it, the media reported.

According to Arstechnica.com that viewed an unredacted court document, Facebook staff in 2012 considered charging companies at least $250,000 for “access to one of its primary troves of user data - the Graph API”.

“In April 2014, Facebook changed the way the previously permissive Graph API works.

“The social media giant restricted some data access and eliminated all access to the earlier version by June 2015,” the report said on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that “Facebook employees discussed pushing some advertisers to spend more in return for increased access to user information”.

A failure on Facebook’s part to adequately redact a public court document revealed this information. According to Arstechnica.com, Facebook gave “extended access to v1.0 of Graph API to numerous companies, not only including Nissan and Royal Bank of Canada, but now also to Chrysler/fiat, Lyft, Airbnb, and Netflix”.

A Facebook spokesperson, however, was quoted as saying that Chrysler/fiat and the other companies, besides Nissan and Royal Bank of Canada, were listed erroneously in the court document.

The news comes on the heels of the UK Parliament obtaining internal Facebook documents from US company Six4three that has sued the social media giant over what it claims are fraudulent breaches of contract.