FaceBook to Banks: Say, Why Don't You Give Us The Checking Account Balances for Your Clients on FaceBook?

They might have asked the actual users if they wanted FaceBook to have their account information.

But I imagine they expected the answer would be "No."

So they're doing an end-around their own alleged customers (FaceBook users aren't its customers, they're its products) and just asked their corporate partners in banking for the information.

Facebook has requested customer financial information from a number of U.S. banks without obtaining permission from users, according to a recent report. Included in the requests are credit card transactions and checking account balances for the customers.

Facebook has spoken with JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup Inc. and U.S. Bancorp. Their requests are ostensibly to "help" their users by showing their checking account balances on their Facebook feed, making it easier to sell products and services.

...

According to the Wall Street Journal, a person familiar with the discussions said that "Facebook has told banks that the additional customer information could be used to offer services that might entice users to spend more time on Messenger."

"The company is trying to deepen user engagement," the WSJ reported. "Investors shaved more than $120 billion from its market value in one day last month after it said its growth is starting to slow.”

A Facebook spokesman said, "We don't use purchase data from banks or credit card companies for ads. We also don't have special relationships, partnerships, or contracts with banks or credit-card companies to use their customers' purchase data for ads." The spokesman added, "Like many online companies, we routinely talk to financial institutions about how we can improve people’s commerce experiences, like enabling better customer service. An essential part of these efforts is keeping people's information safe and secure."

How thoughtful. They're doing this for us! Yes, we know how well that works.

posted by Ace of Spades at 04:12 PM

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