Facebook Suspends 200 Apps in Cambridge Analytica Fallout

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. is suspending 200 apps that may have leaked private data on large groups of users without their consent, as it looks for potential breaches similar to the one involving Cambridge Analytica.

Since it was discovered earlier this year that personal information from as many as 87 million Facebook users was improperly shared with political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, Facebook has begun looking back over thousands of apps that had similar access before the platform's policies changed in 2014.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg promised an examination of all its apps on March 21. As it goes through them, when concerns are flagged the company will conduct interviews and request more information about the details the app has access to and possibly perform on-site inspections of those app providers. The disclosure Monday in a blog post indicates the widespread impact of Facebook's data sharing with developers.

The 200 apps are suspended pending an investigation into whether they did in fact misuse data. If evidence proves that they did, the apps will be banned from Facebook and people who used them will be notified, similar to the steps Facebook took in contacting people to let them know if their data was transferred to Cambridge Analytica.

The update shows that the consequences from the scandal are far from over even as Facebook's stock price has recovered to pre-scandal levels. The shares were little changed Monday at $186.92.

--With assistance from Sarah Frier

To contact the reporter on this story: Polina Noskova in New York at pnoskova@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chakradhar Adusumilli at cadusumilli@bloomberg.net, Nate Lanxon, Molly Schuetz

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