Facebook’s plan to release users’ addresses and cellphone numbers to...
Facebook’s plan to release users’ addresses and cellphone numbers to third parties is raising eyebrows on Capitol Hill. House Commerce Committee members Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas, raised questions in a letter Wednesday to company CEO Mark Zuckerberg.…
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“Facebook needs to protect the personal information of its users to ensure that Facebook doesn’t become Phonebook,” Markey said in a statement. The lawmakers asked Facebook to specify what information would be shared and whether any has been shared previously. They also asked why Facebook decided to suspend and then reactivate the sharing program and whether users opting in to sharing could later opt out. Markey and Barton asked for responses by Feb. 23. Facebook believes “there is tremendous value in giving people the freedom and control to take information they put on Facebook with them to other websites,” said a spokesman for the company. “We enable people to share this information only after they explicitly authorize individual applications to access it.” Facebook designed the system with “a number of privacy experts,” it said. “Following the rollout of this new feature, we heard some feedback and agree that there may be additional improvements we could make. Great people at the company are working on that and we look forward to sharing their progress soon.”