NH AG, other states demand answers from Facebook on possible data breach

CONCORD - New Hampshire's attorney general on Monday joined 37 other state and territorial in sending a letter demanding answers from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the company's business practices and privacy protections.

In a statement, the state's AG, Gordon J. MacDonald, said they had written in their letter to Zuckerberg that news reports indicated the data of at least 50 million Facebook profiles may have been misused by third-party software developers.

Facebook's policies allowed developers to access the personal data of "friends" of people who used certain applications - without the knowledge or consent of these users, the letter stated.

The letter raised a series of questions about the social networking site's policies and practices, including:

Were those terms of service clear and understandable?

How did Facebook monitor what these developers did with all the data that they collected?

What type of controls did Facebook have over the data given to developers?

Did Facebook have protective safeguards in place, including audits, to ensure developers were not misusing the Facebook user's data?

How many users in the states of the signatory Attorneys General were impacted?

When did Facebook learn of this breach of privacy protections?

And lastly, during this timeframe, what other third party "research" applications were also able to access the data of unsuspecting Facebook users?