Beginning in 2010, if people visited one of those partner sites while logged in to Facebook, a blue bar on the screen would let them know the site was receiving their Facebook data to personalize what they saw. In some deals, Facebook shared information with other companies and in turn received people’s contact details — data Facebook used to develop complex friend network models and suggest more connections, the documents show. The tool incorporated Facebook friend lists and allowed people to share articles and make recommendations to other readers. The feature was shut down in 2011, but The Times continued to have access to friend lists until 2017. The Times spokeswoman said they were unaware of the continued access and were not receiving any data for the feature from Facebook.

Source: New York Times December 20, 2018 02:26 UTC