Facebook provided Netflix and Spotify capabilities to read and possibly delete users’ private messages, an investigation has uncovered.

The social media giant granted many companies exceptions to it’s own privacy policies making user data available through loopholes. Companies like Amazon, Microsoft & Sony potentially could use user data far beyond what is allowed in its user policy.

Details can be found in the hundreds of pages of Facebook documents obtained by The New York Times. The documents from 2017 provide the most complete picture of the social network’s data-sharing practices. They also shine a negative light on how personal data has become the most prized materials of the digital era, traded by companies on a comprehensive scale by companies in Silicon Valley and beyond.

Facebook gave Netflix, Spotify and the Royal Bank of Canada the ability to read, write and delete users’ private messages. While also providing companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Amazon the ability to obtain email addresses of their users’ friends as late as 2017. Device manufacturers like Apple had the ability to build special features that filled into the social network.

Netflix, Spotify and RBC have all denied doing anything negative with personal data retrieved from private messages. Netflix also took action and tweeted it never asked for the access that was available to them. Spotify also says it had no idea this level of access was even available. RBC argues it even had the ability to see users’ messages.

Facebook should never have given them this ability without getting your explicit permission to do so even if companies like Netflix & Spotify did not know they had this access or did not use it maliciously.

What Do You think? Should Facebook be providing access to your personal data in return for profits and building stronger partnerships with companies?