Facebook blacklists Kontagent for violating data retention policy

AdExchanger reports that Facebook has dropped Kontagent and HasOffers from its mobile ad analytics partnership program, forbidding the two companies from offering Facebook ad analytics data to new advertisers or continuing to offer such data to their current clients. The two companies were blacklisted by Facebook after a routine audit of their data privacy practices by a third party revealed that both companies were violating their contract with Facebook by, among other things, retaining user data for too long and failing to require developers who advertised through them to notify users that their apps were engaging in data collection. This is especially noteworthy in light of the fact that Kontagent specializes in providing ad analytics to game developers, and counts Halfbrick, EA, and Ubisoft among its clients. Facebook issued the following statement to AdExchanger when pressed for comment: "After working with a third-party auditor to review the practices of all our mobile measurement partners, we discovered that some weren’t adhering to the terms they agreed to." "As a result, we’ve removed a couple of our partners from the program. We take our contracts seriously, and will continue to act swiftly anytime we find out they are being violated." It's worth pointing out that Kontagent recently raised nearly $5 million in funding from investors after announcing a merger with game marketing platform PlayHaven to create a unified advertising/analytics platform for mobile game makers. UPDATE: Kontagent+PlayHaven CEO Andy Yang acknowledged that his company failed to comply with Facebook's data privacy policy and attempted to explain why the violation occurred, as well as clarifying which Kontagent+PlayHaven services will be affected by Facebook's decision, in a post published on the company's blog.