he Federal Trade Commission has accused Facebook of ripping off app developers with a bogus verification scheme. It says the company may have made almost a hundred thousand dollars without actually doing any work.
The alleged trickery came with a program by which Facebook charged developers $375 (reduced to $175 for non-profit groups) to check that an app was “secure, respectful and transparent” and generally something that users could trust.
Those apps which passed the review process were allowed to display a green tick logo and were given priority treatment in both search results and directory listings.
The FTC says all was not as it seemed however: “Facebook took no steps to verify either the security of a verified application’s website or the security the application provided for the user information it collected, beyond such steps as it may have taken regarding any other Platform Application.”
According to the FTC, that means that not only was Facebook ripping off app developers, but misled users about the supposed security of the applications.
The details of the alleged scam emerged in the final settlement documents covering a range of Facebook violations including previously reported details that it misled customers about the way privacy settings worked on the site.
Facebook has now formally agreed the settlement. As a result it will now have to make several changes to its policies, including not changing the privacy levels on user data without getting express permission. The site will undergo independent audits of its privacy policies over the next 20 years.
The way FTC settlements work mean that Facebook is making no legal admission of any wrongdoing. If any of the app developers affected by the alleged scam took civil action, they could not use the settlement as evidence of Facebook’s wrongdoing.
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