{"id":145387,"date":"2019-07-23T22:32:44","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T22:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=145387"},"modified":"2025-07-01T21:39:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:39:05","slug":"facebook-phone-number-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/facebook-phone-number-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise: Facebook let advertisers have your phone number"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"css-d92687\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-145394\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/sft\/articles\/auto-mapping-folder\/sites\/3\/2021\/04\/facebook_phone_arymuv.jpg\" alt=\"Facebook\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Did you trust Facebook with your phone number? That might not have been the smartest move.<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Trade Commission is about to file a complaint that suggests <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2019\/07\/23\/facebook-deceived-users-about-way-it-used-phone-numbers-facial-recognition-ftc-allege-complaint\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook misled its users about how their phone numbers would be handled.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You may have uploaded your phone number as part of two-factor authentication. But <strong>the FTC says advertisers used those numbers to target you without your knowledge.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The feds are also attacking Facebook for not clearly explaining that users could turn off a facial recognition tool often used for tagging photos. Allegedly, 30 million users were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.consumerreports.org\/privacy\/what-to-do-if-youre-missing-facebooks-face-recognition-setting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">left in the dark about that setting<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This news comes as <a href=\"http:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/facebook-ftc-privacy-fine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the government ripped Facebook with a $5 billion fine<\/a>, although reports say the original fine was supposed to be much higher.<\/p>\n<p>So will Facebook ever learn or are we doomed to report these constant data leaks every single day?<\/p>\n<p>According to the Washington Post, Facebook is agreeing to &#8220;submit to unprecedented federal oversight of its business practices, including the creation of a special committee on its board of directors that regularly certifies the tech giant is handling user data appropriately.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Somehow, we think this isn&#8217;t the end of Facebook&#8217;s privacy scandals&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sc-card-starred-link\">\r\n  <div class=\"sc-card-starred-link__body\">\r\n    <div class=\"sc-card-starred-link__row clearfix\">\r\n      <div class=\"sc-card-starred-link__col-logo\">\r\n        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sc-card-starred-link__img\" src=\"https:\/\/articles-img.sftcdn.net\/image\/upload\/q_auto:eco\/v1562784579\/editorial\/voting_192.webp\" width=\"100px\" height=\"100px\">\r\n      <\/div>\r\n      <div class=\"sc-card-starred-link__col-title\">\r\n        <p class=\"sc-card-starred-link__title\">This is why Facebook can\u2019t stop election interference<\/p>\r\n        <a class=\"sc-card-starred-link__button\" href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/facebook-election-interference\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer sponsored\">Read Now \u25ba<\/a>\r\n      <\/div>\r\n    <\/div>\r\n    <a class=\"sc-card-starred-link__link\" href=\"https:\/\/en.softonic.com\/articles\/facebook-election-interference\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer sponsored\"><\/a>\r\n  <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"css-429vn2\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advertisers probably have your phone number now. Thanks, Facebook!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9139,"featured_media":145393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":1},"categories":[1015],"tags":[2353,1059],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-145387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-app-subdomain-redirectionfacebook","tag-facebook"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325670,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145387\/revisions\/325670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145387"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=145387"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=145387"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=145387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}