The Washington Post reported that “Facebook was not honest about its ability to identify users who had both Facebook and WhatsApp accounts and link those accounts” during Facebook acquisition in 2014.  The May 18, 2017 report entitled “Facebook will pay $122 million in fines to the E.U.” included these details:

When Facebook notified the acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014, it informed the Commission that it would be unable to establish reliable automated matching between Facebook users’ accounts and WhatsApp users’ accounts…

However, in August 2016, WhatsApp announced updates to its terms of service and privacy policy, including the possibility of linking WhatsApp users’ phone numbers with Facebook users’ identities.

Moreover, regulators said, Facebook staff knew that matching accounts was technically possible at the time of the review…

What do you think about Facebook’s confession of privacy dishonesty to the EU?

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