Worst outage, criminal probe: Facebook suffers double blow

WASHINGTON/NEWYORK: US federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into data deals Facebook Inc struck with some of the world’s largest technology companies, The New York Times has reported.

A grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records from at least two prominent makers of smartphones and other devices, the newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the requests and without naming the companies. Both companies are among the more than 150, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, that have entered into partnerships with Facebook for access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of its users, according to the report.

Facebook is facing a slew of lawsuits and inquiries over its privacy practices, including ongoing investigations by the US Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and two state agencies in New York. Facebook said it was cooperating with investigators.

FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM SUFFER OUTAGES

Facebook Inc says it is aware of outages on its platforms including Facebook, Messenger and Instagram and has been working to resolve the issue.

The o ut a g e s s t a r t e d o n Wednesday.

Facebook called the problem a “partial outage”, and said it has experienced “increased error rates” since that time.

Downdetector.com, a site that monitors site outages, said the Facebook problem affected parts of the US, Europe and elsewhere.