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gtremper | 8 years ago

Cambridge Analytica didn't pay to access this data. They got users to give it to them for free though Facebook's developer platform.

discuss

justsee|8 years ago

Actually Cambridge Analytica licensed the data from GSR, according to their press release from earlier this week [1].

> A research company (GSR) licensed the data to us, which they legally obtained via a tool provided by Facebook. Hundreds of data firms have utilized Facebook data in a similar fashion.

[1] https://ca-commercial.com/news/time-facts-not-conjecture-say...

ProAm|8 years ago

Thanks for the correction, I thought CA paid for access to the data the test collected.

gtremper|8 years ago

As mwarkentin included, CA _did_ pay users via mechanical turk to install the quiz app. So they did pay the users directly for their data, but not facebook. It seems there is no way to completely stop this without facebook blocking people from exporting their own data. Since CA could just pay people to send them their exported facebook data.

gtremper|8 years ago

My understanding is the "quiz app" was more of a phishing scheme to get users to share their Facebook data with Cambridge Analytica (including data that user had access to about their friends).