A Russian Internet company with links to the Kremlin was among the firms Facebook gave an extension allowing them to collect data on unsuspecting users — even after the practice was supposedly stopped, CNN reported Tuesday.
Facebook said apps developed by the Russian technology conglomerate Mail.Ru Group, were being looked at as part of the company's wider investigation into the misuse of Facebook user data, CNN reported.
The social media giant also told CNN the Mail.Ru Group developed hundreds of Facebook apps, some of which were test apps that were not made public.
Two apps were granted an extension, lasting two weeks, that would have let them collect data beyond the cut-off date, Facebook told CNN.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement to CNN that Facebook's relationship with Mail.Ru deserved further scrutiny.
According to CNN, before 2015, in some cases when Facebook users interacted with the apps built by third-party developers on the social media platform, the developer not only got data about that user, but also about the users' friends and what they "liked."
In 2014, Facebook announced it was changing the policy, and would restrict developers' access to data on app users' friends by May 2015.
Two weeks ago, Facebook told Congress it gave 61 companies, including Mail.Ru, an extension on access to the data beyond May 2015, CNN noted.
Mail.Ru told CNN it had not been contacted by Facebook about its investigation into the misuse of user data. Facebook, however, told CNN it had contacted Mail.Ru about the probe, though it did not say when it first reached out.
Mail.Ru Group is controlled by USM Holdings, a company founded by Alisher Usmanov, who was included on a list the U.S. Treasury Department published in January of Russian billionaires with ties to the Kremlin.