Rob Price

Facebook harvested the email contacts of 1.5 million users without their knowledge or consent when they opened their accounts. Since May 2016, the company has collected the contact lists of 1.5 million users new to the social network. Facebook said the contact data was "unintentionally uploaded to Facebook," and it is now deleting them. The revelation comes after pseudononymous security researcher noticed that Facebook was asking some users to enter their email passwords when they signed up for new accounts to verify their identities, a move widely condemned by security experts.

Facebook explored building bird-size drones to shuttle data for people in areas with slow internet connections. "Catalina" was a secret internal project in Facebook's Connectivity unit, the company's efforts to get people around the world online — and on Facebook. The tiny fixed-wing drones would be fitted with solid-state storage devices capable of storing data-intensive media like videos and photos. A Facebook representative said the project was ended a year ago.