Perhaps part of what's changed is that just a few weeks back Cambridge Analytica claimed — in writing, to the UK Parliament — that they did not harvest profiles from Facebook:
"On 8 February 2018 Mr Matheson implied that Cambridge Analytica "gathers data from users on Facebook." Cambridge Analytica does not gather such data." — Letter from Alexander Nix, CEO, Cambridge Analytica, to the Chair of the Committee, 23 February 2018 (PDF, linked from below page)
— And now, it's basically been 'proven' by FB that they do. Of course the ICO is gonna get involved now.
Edit: plus there's also this Channel4 investigation which went public today:
"An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers."
They also testified to Parliament that they had no business in Russia, and an ex-founder (who left on bad terms, admittedly) has since come out and said that when he was still there, they were sending a Russian oil company information about how to target American voters.
Question from a [mostly] ignorant person (me, about these subjets):
Why would russian intelligence use an oil company as a shell ? Does Russia sell oil to the US ? If so do they market directly to individuals in the US ?
That I understand, but it seems like oil companies don't market directly to _people_, that they would collect data on individuals they don't market to seems highly suspicious in and of itself.
"On 8 February 2018 Mr Matheson implied that Cambridge Analytica "gathers data from users on Facebook." Cambridge Analytica does not gather such data." — Letter from Alexander Nix, CEO, Cambridge Analytica, to the Chair of the Committee, 23 February 2018 (PDF, linked from below page)
https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z...
— And now, it's basically been 'proven' by FB that they do. Of course the ICO is gonna get involved now.
Edit: plus there's also this Channel4 investigation which went public today:
"An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers."
https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t...
— I think that most certainly puts CA into all kinds of shit they weren't in just 24hrs ago.