Facebook spies on phone users' text messages, report says

The (London) Sunday Times reports that Facebook is accessing smartphone users' personal text messages. Facebook admitted reading text messages belonging to smartphone users who downloaded the social-networking app and said that it was accessing the data as part of a trial to launch its own messaging service. Facebook denied the report, saying it is running a "limited" test of new features that may require the company to make use of permissions it already asks from users to access their texts. Facebook said its application for Android operating systems does not read or write text messages for most users. However, the company is "currently running a limited test of mobile features which integrate with SMS functionality."