“Farmville” was one of Facebook’s early successes in social gaming, from the early era when the social media giant opened up its platform to any third-party developer with an idea. This led to an explosion in Facebook-embedded content and time spent on the social network, boosting ad revenue, but also opening users up to shady privacy policies and data usage. The unregulated approach to fostering integrations on Facebook opened up the door for companies such as Cambridge Analytica to gain access to private information on users’ entire social networks without the users’ explicit consent.

Source: Los Angeles Times April 04, 2019 17:46 UTC