Facebook app analytics mistakenly leaked to outsiders

Come on, Facebook.

Marrian Zhou Staff Reporter

Marrian Zhou is a Beijing-born Californian living in New York City. She joined CNET as a staff reporter upon graduation from Columbia Journalism School. When Marrian is not reporting, she is probably binge watching, playing saxophone or eating hot pot.

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Marrian Zhou

June 22, 2018 2:26 p.m. PT

2 min read

The company confirmed Friday that roughly 3 percent of apps on Facebook Analytics had their weekly summary information leaked to outsiders.

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Facebook is in the news for privacy problems. Again.

The company on Friday confirmed to CNET in an email statement that roughly 3 percent of apps on Facebook Analytics had their weekly summary information leaked to outsiders. These reports contained three metrics about the apps -- the number of new users, weekly active users and page views, and were mistakenly sent to people identified as "testers." TechCrunch first reported the news.

"Due to an error in our email delivery system, weekly business performance summaries we send to developers about their account were also sent to a small group of those developer's app testers. No personal information about people on Facebook was shared," said Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne. "We're sorry for the error and have updated our system to prevent it from happening again."

This is just the latest incident to call into question Facebook's attitude toward its data. The company confirmed earlier this month that it had let some companies keep accessing users' personal information after announcing that Facebook had stopped sharing data. Around the same time, news broke that the tech giant gave Chinese telecommunications company Huawei special access to its user data.

Unlike the previous incidents, in this one, little critical information about its users appeared to have leaked.

"All detailed information is available via a link, which doesn't work for tester who mistakenly received the email," Facebook told CNET in the email. "We've started notifying the apps involved today and have made technical changes to prevent this from happening again."