Smartphone giant Samsung has seemingly struck a deal with Facebook to prevent the de-installation of the app on some of its phones.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Samsung phone owners have experienced troubled uninstalling Facebook from their phone, with some users finding that they could “disable” but not delete the app.
Certain Android-based devices come with the Facebook app already installed, leading to questions about a behind the scenes deal between the two companies.
“It just absolutely baffles me that if I wanted to completely get rid of Facebook that it essentially would still be on my phone, which brings up more questions,” says Nick Winke,a photographer in the Pacific Northwest. “Can they still track your information, your location, or whatever else they do? We the consumer should have [a] say in what we want and don’t want on our products.”
It’s unclear how many Samsung phone versions have Facebook preinstalled, or when Facebook and Samsung inked a deal to have Facebook on devices out of the box.
“Unfortunately some Samsung devices come with Facebook preinstalled so it’s treated as a system app. If that’s your case the only option is to disable the app in settings – apps – all,” one user said on the Android Central forum.
The user complaints come in the wake of several incidents involving the integrity of data on Facebook. In December, the social network gave companies, including Netflix, Spotify, and Microsoft, greater access to users’ personal data than previously disclosed. In the same month, Facebook disclosed a bug on the platform that exposed 6.8 million people’s photos to outside developers.
