Facebook

Despite all the privacy scandals in 2018, it looks like Facebook is back to business as usual, buoyed by better than expected financial, user growth and engagement numbers in its most recent 4Q 2018 earnings report.

Group of nine privacy and anti-monopoly advocacy groups have called on the FTC to break up Facebook, citing the tech company’s long track record of ignoring privacy concerns, the group also called on the FTC to fine Facebook as much as $2 billion.

New research study suggests that even deleting your accounts might not be enough to protect your social media privacy. Using machine learning algorithms, your “friends” activities can create some startlingly accurate profiles about you.

Facebook is once again coming under public scrutiny after a comprehensive report from Privacy International showed how many popular Android apps are sharing personal user data with Facebook without user consent.

It’s been a bad year for Facebook – and a worse one for its users. However – many of the problems at the social media company are systemic – and the product of its own attitude to harnessing the data of users to run targeted ad campaigns.

Surveillance capitalism as a revenue model through the observation and recording of as much personal data as possible to create highly effective targeted advertisements is growing unchecked. Can regulation level the playing field?

LinkedIn accused of gathering 18 million email addresses of non-users and using those addresses for targeted Facebook advertising. And the Irish Data Protection Commissioner got a bit irate – and rightly so.

Facebook has once again found itself in the unenviable position of having to defend itself against privacy violation claims – this time via Facebook Portal.

Facebook data breach comes hot on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and resulted in 50 million compromised accounts. This is proving to be a tough year for Facebook.

Personalization is driving dynamic, tailored experiences. The reliance on data raises data privacy concerns, and when new “zero-data” sharing social networks like Openbook pop up, questions over the use – and misuse – of data is inevitable.