London (AFP) - Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg
took out full-page ads in nine major British and US newspapers on Sunday to apologise
for a huge data privacy scandal.
Photo: Zuckerberg repeated that Facebook had changed the rules so no such data breach could happen again. (AFP Photo/Josh Edelson)
"We have a responsibility to protect
your information. If we can't we don't deserve it," he said.
The ads ran in prominent positions in six
British nationals, including the best-selling Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Times
and The Observer -- which helped break the story -- as well as the New York
Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg explained there was a quiz
developed by a university researcher "that leaked Facebook data of
millions of people in 2014".
"This was a breach of trust, and I'm
sorry we didn't do more at the time. We're now taking steps to make sure this
doesn't happen again," he said.
The ad reflects public statements Zuckerberg
made last week after the row prompted investigations in Europe and the United
States, and sent Facebook's share price plunging.
He repeated that the social media giant had
changed the rules on apps so no such data breach could happen again.
"We're also investigating every single
app that had access to large amounts of data before we fixed this. We expect
there are others," he wrote.
"And when we find them, we will ban them
and tell everyone affected."
It too has blamed the University of Cambridge
researcher Alexsandr Kogan, for any potential breach of data rules.
Kogan created a lifestyle quiz app for
Facebook which was downloaded by 270,000 people, but allowed access to tens of
millions of their contacts.
Facebook says he passed this to Cambridge
Analytica without its knowledge. Kogan says he is being made a scapegoat.
