Facebook will now pay you up to $40,000 for reporting a single data abuser, the company announced Tuesday, having detailed its new data abuse bounty program meant to encourage the online community to help the social media giant police its own platform and prevent another incident reminiscent of the Cambridge Analytica ordeal that’s still unraveling. Anyone who reports a Facebook app developer that abuses collected user data or harvests it in an improper manner and has compromised over 10,000 users through such activities will be eligible for a reward starting at $500 and ending at the aforementioned quintuple-digit figure, the company said.
Facebook is quick to point out that its new bounty program is meant to target data abuse and not just collection, with the former being defined as a clear breach of its Terms of Service that poses a privacy risk for users. The Menlo Park, California-based social media giant still reserves the right to assess reports on a case-by-case basis and could possibly withhold a reward based on its perception of privacy violations. The firm also won’t reward reports it was already aware of and is investigating even if the thereof haven’t been publicly disclosed beforehand. The bounty program only applies to data misuse cases on Facebook and doesn’t span the company’s other properties such as Instagram. Data abusers that Facebook is specifically targeting with the initiative are those who practice social engineering, push malware, or rely on growth hacks to mislead users into installing their apps en masse before harvesting their data for profit in a surreptitious manner.
Facebook already banned several data harvesters following the emergence of the Cambridge Analytica controversy, having most recently done so this week. Its co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is presently in Washington where he’s scheduled to attend two congressional hearings on the matter over the next 24 hours. The multi-billionaire already apologized for the ordeal on several occasions and vowed to make Facebook a more responsible company that proactively seeks to deal with potential abusers instead of waiting for data misuse to happen before reacting. Users interested in trying their luck with the data abuse bounty program can find out more details about the initiative by referring to the source link below.