Privacy protection issues relating to social media websites continue to cause problems, with the latest issue revolving around Path and its 2 million members.
News came out this week that the social media site was actually downloading consumers' address books to its servers without any permission,
Reuters reports. The company said that the information was used to help users find friends on the service, but significant backlash emerged.
The company's chief executive later apologized on the company's blog, saying that the firm "made a mistake" and subsequently deleted all of the contact information it had collected.
"Through the feedback we've received from all of you, we now understand that the way we had designed our 'Add Friends' feature was wrong," he said. "We are deeply sorry if you were uncomfortable with how our application used your phone contacts."
The latest version of the company's app will ask consumers if they want to opt in to a similar protocol.
For more on privacy or legal issues, please consult the blog maintained by
Eduard Goodman, chief privacy officer at
Identity Theft 911.
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