Attorney General Announces Investigation into Facebook

Attorney General Letitia James announced an investigation into Facebook’s unauthorized collection of 1.5 million Facebook users’ email contact databases. While Facebook contends that the contacts were obtained directly through their email verification process, the Attorney General is looking into reports that Facebook collected password information for those email accounts and uploaded Facebook user’s contacts to use for targeted advertisements. This comes just days after Facebook announced they were setting aside $3 billion in anticipation they would be facing up to $5 billion in FEC fines.

Attorney General James said:

“It is time Facebook is held accountable for how it handles consumers’ personal information. Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for consumers’ information while at the same time profiting from mining that data. Facebook’s announcement that it harvested 1.5 million users’ email address books, potentially gaining access to contact information for hundreds of millions of individual consumers without their knowledge, is the latest demonstration that Facebook does not take seriously its role in protecting our personal information.”