Few consumers may have heard of Acxiom, a database marketer. But it has amassed the world’s largest commercial data trove about them, analysts say.

It's not just what you tell Facebook about yourself!

‘People can choose to not be on Facebook if they want’

I was reading Facebook's revised terms & "privacy" policy this morning, and it specifies that FB is allowed to collect the names of apps and the names of files on any device you log in from. Kudos to the EU for persuading FB to admit it.

Facebook thrives on data, prodding users to provide it with their memories, cherished moments and relationships.

Consumer Reports explains how Facebook tracks consumers across many websites, gathering data even if you who don't have a Facebook or Instagram account.

Internal emails also reveal plans by Facebook to pass data on single Facebook users to companies selling dating services or organisations that wanted to target single people with ‘political’ advertisements. The documents, marked confidential, reveal a secret programme by Facebook’s ‘Growth Team’ to collect and exploit data from customers with Android mobile phones. Their disclosures come only a week after a critical report by a UK parliamentary committee investigating disinformation and fake news, called for independent regulator to oversee Facebook and other social media companies.

Millions of smartphone users confess their most intimate secrets to apps, including personal health information. Unbeknown to most people, in many cases that data is being shared with someone else: Facebook.

In my years covering cybersecurity, there’s one variation of the same lie that floats above the rest. “We take your privacy and security seriously.” You might have heard the phrase here and there. It’s a common trope used by companies in the wake of a data breach — eit…

TL;DR

Well, this sounds familiar.

UK lawmakers have accused Facebook of violating data privacy and competition laws in a report on social media disinformation that also says CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed "contempt" toward parliament by not appearing before them.

Police are increasingly using judge-approved "reverse location" search warrants to find cellphones near crime scenes. Civil liberties experts worry it's a digital dragnet ripe for abuse. Authorities say it's an important new crime fighting tool.

Facebook collects more information on more people than almost any other private corporation in history. And it gave dozens of companies more intrusive access to that data than it ever disclosed.

Internal documents show that the social network gave Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify and others far greater access to people’s data than it has disclosed.