CubeYou – Another Data Firm Suspended On Facebook
- CNBC investigations reveal another data firm - CubeYou has been using similar techniques to Cambridge Analytica to gather user info.
- Facebook promptly suspends the company from their platform.
- According to CNBC, the company used personality games like "You Are What You Like" to gain user info and then sell them to third parties.
CNBC has recently done an investigation revealing that CubeYou - yet another data firm, has been employing techniques similar to Cambridge Analytica to harvest user data and selling it off to third parties. Soon afterward, Facebook made the inevitable decision and suspended the company from their platform.
According to what CNBC’s investigation churned out, CubeYou employs social apps which collects personal information about users such as names, mobile numbers, their IPs, employment statuses, and relationship statuses. Once they have gathered this information, they use certain other sources to match or link their findings and together create an enhanced profile for marketers.
Most of the data apps that are used by the firm are of similar nature to personality analyzer games such as “You Are What You Like.” Once you agree to share with them your personal info, the apps will then predict your personality. The company has even advertised these quizzes as “non-profit academic research.” But little do users know that their personal data is being collected and then being sent to any third-party to be used for whatever reasons.
When CubeYou CEO Federico Treu was asked to comment on this matter, he said their company did not have access to friends data like Cambridge Analytica did. Furthermore, they mentioned “You Are What You Like” overtly states that the user’s data will be shared with third parties. In fact, the likes of Google, Geico, and L’Oreal are all of CubeYou’s partners which they have announced publicly.
Image Courtesy of CubeYou
Now, it is good to find Facebook taking prompt action against companies that are using data sharing to violate a person’s privacy. However, the real concern here is that the social media giant had already stated that they would look into whether or not more companies are misusing their platform and compromising users’ privacy. And now, as a matter of fact, Facebook wasn’t able to spot CubeYou’s actions, but it was done by CNBC. So the current question is whether or not more companies are abusing Facebook from right under their nose, without them even finding out.