WorldSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Big internet companies and small software developers alike are likely to face scrutiny over how they share customer information in the wake of the scandal involving Facebook Inc and the British election consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Facebook shares have fallen 8.5 percent this week as investors fear the incident will lead to new regulation. But the Facebook case has turned the application programming interfaces, or APIs, that enable such data sharing, into a new front in the escalating battle between lawmakers and tech companies over the monitoring and securing of their vast platforms. Threat of sanctions has already prodded companies into better policing of inappropriate commentary on their services. “The days of (the) ‘we’re just a platform and can’t be held responsible for how users use it’ line that many companies use, is no longer going to be tenable.”

Source: Sunday Times March 22, 2018 05:03 UTC