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[Commentary] A storm dubbed #DeleteFacebook is brewing in techie communities, on Twitter and — irony alert — on Facebook. The idea is this time is different from all the other times the social network has violated our trust. There have been many calls to boycott Facebook for past indiscretions. If we want the result to be any different this time, we need to address the broader problem. Aside from a dramatic change of heart from founder Mark Zuckerberg, getting Facebook to reform what data it collects and how it uses it requires destabilizing its business.

[Press release] This was a breach of trust between Cambridge University Researcher Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge Analytica, and Facebook. But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it. We need to fix that. We already took the most important steps a few years ago in 2014 to prevent bad actors from accessing people's information in this way. But there's more we need to do and I'll outline those steps here:

Perhaps at some point in the past few years you’ve told Facebook that you like, say, Kim Kardashian West. When you hit the thumbs-up button on her page, you probably did it because you wanted to see the reality TV star’s posts in your news feed. Maybe you realized that marketers could target advertisements to you based on your interest in her. What you probably missed is that researchers had figured out how to tie your interest in Kardashian to certain personality traits, such as how extroverted you are (very), how conscientious (more than most) and how open-minded (only somewhat).

In 2012 the Obama campaign was desperate to reach twentysomethings who were hard to access because they had only cell phones. So it sought to reach them on Facebook. Two GOP campaign analytics sources said the Obama camp used a common Facebook developer API – the same one used to access the data for Cambridge Analytica – to create a Facebook app that could capture the personal data not only of the app user, but also of all that person’s friends.

The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into Facebook following reports that a data analytics firm that had worked with the Trump campaign had improperly accessed names, “likes” and other personal information about tens of millions of the social site’s users without their knowledge. The FTC probe – confirmed by a source familiar with the agency's thinking and not authorized to speak on the record -- marks the most substantial political and legal threat yet to Facebook as it grapples with the fallout from Cambridge Analytica and its controversial tactics.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) has introduced a bill that would require on-air disclosures of content from foreign entities. The Foreign Entities Reform Act of 2018 (FERA) would amend the Communications Act to require broadcast, cable and satellite companies to disclose through the duration of the content when it has been supplied by a registered foreign agent, like RT, the Russia-backed video content that the Intelligence Community has concluded tried to influence the 2016 election.

Alexander Nix is a director of SCL Group, a British political and defense contractor, and chief executive of its American offshoot, Cambridge Analytica, which advised the Trump campaign. The firms’ employees, who often overlap, had contact in 2014 and 2015 with executives from Lukoil, the Russian oil giant.  Lukoil was interested in how data was used to target American voters, according to two former company insiders who said there were at least three meetings with Lukoil executives in London and Turkey.

Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign, harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters, in one of the tech giant’s biggest ever data breaches, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box.

The Federal Election Commission wants the public to weigh in on proposals that would shed light on the people buying political ads on Facebook, Google and other online platforms. The commission unanimously voted to release two proposals that would expand disclosure requirements for internet political ads for public comment. The new regulations—the first update to online political advertising rules since 2006–would require web platforms to disclose who paid for any “express advocacy” ads, which call on viewers to vote for or against a specific candidate.

Apparently, Google users who subscribe to newspapers will find articles from those publications appearing higher in their search results, part of the company’s efforts to help media companies recruit and retain paying readers. will also begin sharing search data that show who’s most likely to buy a subscription, said the people, who asked to be anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Google executives plan to disclose specific details at an event in New York on March 20, according to the people.