Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Wednesday 3 July 2019
APNewsBreak: Data scientist drops Facebook defamation suit

setting, the regulator said.
Cambridge Analytica
worked for the eventual
2016 GOP presidential
nominee, Donald Trump.
Had Trump not won the
election, "my life (would
be) very different," Kogan
said.
Kogan and other develop-
ers say Facebook allowed
such wholesale gathering
of friend data at the time,
although access was later
throttled back for all but se-
lect partners.
"They created these great
tools for developers to col-
lect the data and made it
very easy. This is not a hack.
This was 'Here's the door. It's
open. We're giving away
the groceries. Please col-
lect them," Kogan told CBS
News' 60 Minutes last year.
Other developers tell similar
tales of Facebook's lax atti-
tude toward user data and
their own naïve complic-
ity. If true, Facebook would
have been in direct viola-
tion of a 2011 consent or-
der with the Federal Trade
Commission for allowing
third-party apps like Ko-
gan's to collect data on us-
ers without their knowledge
or consent.
Kogan's university appoint-
ment ended in September,
Aleksandr Kogan poses for a portrait Tuesday, July 2, 2018, in Buffalo N.Y. his company has gone bust
Associated Press and he has been doing
freelance programming,
By FRANK BAJAK "And if you get in their way vide the firm with a copy of or untrue." Facebook shut he said. "I think it would
AP Technology Writer they will destroy you." the data. The project's aim down Kogan's app in late be damn near impossible
Aleksandr Kogan, the data A Facebook spokesperson was to create voter profiles 2015 after it was exposed in to get an academic job,"
scientist at the center of said the company had "no based on Facebook users' press accounts and he said Kogan said by phone from
Facebook's Cambridge comment to share con- online behavior to help in he then destroyed his copy Buffalo, New York, where
Analytica privacy scandal, cerning this development." tailored political-ad target- of the rogue data at its re- he currently lives with his
said he is dropping a defa- The former Cambridge ing, according to Christo- quest. But it didn't ban him wife.
mation lawsuit against the University psychology pro- pher Wylie, a former data from the social media plat- Facebook's privacy trans-
social network rather than fessor created an online scientist at the firm. form until the Cambridge gressions are also the sub-
engage in an expensive, personality test app in 2014 In March 2018, when the Analytica scandal broke ject of investigations in Eu-
drawn-out legal battle. that vacuumed up the per- scandal broke, Facebook last year. rope and by a number of
Kogan, 33, sued the so- sonal data of as many as 87 executives charged that Evidence presented to a U.S. state attorney gener-
cial giant in March, claim- million Facebook users . The Kogan had lied to them U.K. parliamentary commit- als. Canada has sued the
ing it scapegoated him to vast majority of those were about how the data he tee indicated that Cam- company over its alleged
deflect attention from its unwitting online friends of harvested would be used. bridge Analytica had not failure to protect user data,
own misdeeds, thwarting the roughly 200,000 peo- Facebook deputy gen- deleted the Kogan-ac- as has the attorney gen-
his academic career in the ple Kogan says were paid eral counsel Paul Grewal quired dataset on 30 million eral of the District of Co-
process. The suit sought un- about $4 to participate in claimed at the time in a Facebook users by Febru- lumbia. As well, A federal
specified monetary dam- his "ThisIsYourDigital Life" statement to The New York ary 2016. Britain's Informa- judge in northern California
ages and a retraction and quiz. Times that Kogan perpe- tion Commissioner's Office last month allowed a class
correction of what Kogan Cambridge Analytica, a trated "a scam — and a said Cambridge Analytica action lawsuit over Face-
said were "false and de- political data-mining firm fraud." CEO Mark Zucker- used some of that data book's privacy transgres-
famatory statements." founded by conservative berg accused Kogan of "to target voters during the sions to move forward.
"We thought there was a power brokers including bil- violating Facebook rules "to 2016 U.S. presidential cam- Kogan told the AP he now
one percent chance they lionaire Robert Mercer and gather a bunch of informa- paign process." Data col- regrets invading so many
would do the right thing," former White House aide tion, sell it or share it in some lected included age, gen- people's privacy. "In hind-
Kogan told The Associated Steve Bannon, paid Ko- sketchy way." der, posts, email addresses sight it was clearly a re-
Press. Facebook is "brilliant gan $800,000 to conduct Kogan said such accusa- and pages users "liked," ally bad idea to do that
and ruthless," he added. his research and to pro- tions were "either unfair depending on their privacy project."q