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I was asked by facebook to submit my app for an app review to get further access to some fields in their Graph API. I have done so and today I got a message from them:

The permissions and features review for (my app name) is complete. Next, we'll verify your business. To do this, you may need to provide documentation like a business license or utility bill.

The problem is that I have no company and therefore no documents to prove that I have one. I have created and launched this app as an individual and I just want access to few fields from their Graph API.

Please what should I do? I wanted to write them directly, but I haven't found something through what I can contact them.

Martin Mikusovic
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  • Which option did you select for “Business Use” in the app settings? – CBroe Jun 29 '18 at 06:44
  • I have selected Support my own business, because the second one, which is Provide services to other businesses is definitely false. @CBroe – Martin Mikusovic Jun 29 '18 at 06:47
  • Which specific features is your app using? – CBroe Jun 29 '18 at 06:54
  • email, public_profile, user_friends - approved by default; user_gender, user_friends, user_link - successfully reviewed – Martin Mikusovic Jun 29 '18 at 06:58
  • So everything is approved, and your app is working as intended now? Have they actually _asked_ you to provide additional documentation regarding your business anywhere yet? This might just be a generic message, and not really applicable to your case. – CBroe Jun 29 '18 at 07:01
  • Well, they sent me a message that the review is complete, but when I go to app review section, there is that my app is still in review. Seems like it is waiting for that business verification. – Martin Mikusovic Jun 29 '18 at 07:04
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    Facing the same issue, any answers appreciated. The support link on the developer dashboard took me to Q&A for FB analytics, where they asked to register my query on https://www.facebook.com/business/clientsupport. Which just led me to Facebook communities. Awaiting a response there, but not sure if even that is right forum since it focuses on Ads and Facebook pages. – DevD Jun 29 '18 at 09:19

1 Answers1

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New limitations

This is the new Facebook's policy. It looks like access to for example user_friends will be now limited to companies which can afford to implement advanced security systems.

Their requirements seem to be similar to the new European regulation - GPDR. These breaking changes are most likely caused by recent lawsuit related with Facebook & Cambridge Analytica and Mark Zuckerberg's promises during his testimony in Congress.

Facebook requires now to verify your business for some permissions:

New requirements for permissions

If you don't pass app or business review, you will loose access to these APIs after August 1, 2018.

Influence on mobile applications

It's a really bad news for small applications, most likely it will kill Facebook integration.

They don't even provide any form to contact and discuss it, when you click on "support" you are forwarded to support page for Facebook Analytics.

If you have a small company and creating apps for fun, their terms are very demanding and could cause a huge problems for your business in the future. Therefore you should decide if it's worth to risk in exchange of displaying friends.

Interesting things about their requirements

When you start business verification process, it asks about company details, if you provide these, you will be asked to sign a contract with Facebook. I encourage to read carefully their terms, because they ask you to:

  • provide them from time to time upon a written request access to your books, records, agreements, services, facilities etc. which relate to user data in order to audit your security mechanisms and procedures,
  • cover review costs and expenses if they detect any noncompliance with their terms or security requirements.

Good luck to small apps...

References

  • Facebook Login Changelog - here you can check which permission requires app review, business verification and contract,

  • contract with Facebook is not published, you will receive it when you start a business verification,

  • short overview of Mark Zuckerberg's promises,

  • post on my blog with this answer,

  • from Facebook Login Changelog:

    In order to help protect people's data, we're now requiring that an increased number of permissions go through the App Review process. For certain permissions, we are also requiring business verification and a contract between your business and Facebook. Businesses can be verified by providing forms of documentation including utility bills, business licenses, certificates of formation, articles of incorporation, tax ID numbers, and others. The contract introduces additional security requirements and other provisions around data.

August 6, 2019 - Update

Finally, the time has come. Permissions were supposed to stop working on August 1, 2018, but actually Facebook has given one extra year. Yesterday I received this e-mail:

As of September 4, 2019, MY_APP_NAME will no longer have access to the following permissions or features:

user_friends

Wojciech Kulik
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  • Could someone tell me where I can find an official source to this information? – user7518s Jul 06 '18 at 10:22
  • @user7518s Facebook doesn't publish such information, you will get a contract when you start Business Verification. I updated answer and added 'Reference' section. Please don't downvote without reason. – Wojciech Kulik Jul 06 '18 at 14:10
  • Do you know how long takes this Business Verification? Has anyone until now successfully verified their business in Messenger Platform? – user7518s Jul 09 '18 at 09:04
  • @user7518s No idea, my guess is that they will have a lot of requests to process, therefore I think access to features won't be locked if you submitted app for business verification before August 1. – Wojciech Kulik Jul 09 '18 at 09:20
  • Anybody got verified Till now? How long did it take? – SteMa Jul 23 '18 at 05:21
  • Thank for your answer, it really helped me. But now I'm stuck with previous required permission: 1) Facebook approved user_friends and user_likes for my app time ago 2) they asked me to resubmit the app until 1 august 3) I did it but for mistake I left user_friends and user_likes 4) the point where they ask me for signing the contract arrived, but since I don't want to (that's why I'm here and fully agree with your answer), I'm trying to remove the user_friends and user_likes permission, but I can't! (as shown here: https://ibb.co/je0UMK) Does anyone know how to do that? – AldoB Aug 02 '18 at 18:03
  • @AldoB thank you, I'm glad I could help. You can cancel your submission - go to App Review and there should be a button "Cancel Submission" or somewhere there, I don't remember exactly. I'm not sure if you can remove already approved permissions, but it shouldn't bother you, if you don't fulfill their requirements Facebook will just remove these permissions. And your application is the place where you specify which permissions you require from your users. It may happend that you will have to resubmit your app to keep user_hometown,but this time you should be able to skip user_likes and friends – Wojciech Kulik Aug 02 '18 at 18:24
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    Is it possible to get verified as just a person not a business? I submitted all the business verifications information as my self, my house gas bill etc. I got this message back "We were unable to verify your business. Please provide additional documentation to help us verify your business." Do we seriously have to LLC or Corp like officially with the state to get access to these API features? This seems a bit rediculous... – mikemike396 Aug 17 '18 at 12:38
  • @mikemike396 yes, you must have a company to pass business verification and I agree that it is ridiculous... Permissions from middle column don't require business verification, just app review. – Wojciech Kulik Aug 18 '18 at 09:34
  • @WojciechKulik We formed an LLC with our state and Facebook approved the business verification. Thanks all for the help. I can say it is truly required to get access to the new API. – mikemike396 Aug 28 '18 at 14:19
  • What about a DBA registration or a Fictitious Name Registration? Are this valid to complete the Facebook Business verification? – EO Games and Apps Sep 19 '18 at 23:56
  • @mikemike396 How long did your business verifcation take? – Luke Stanyer Sep 27 '18 at 20:32
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    @LukeStanyer Once we had our LLC certificate in hand FB approve it within a few hours. LLC took about 2 business days to process through our state. – mikemike396 Sep 27 '18 at 20:41
  • Holy crap, those lawsuits really put a number on ol' Zuck, basically setting fire to the ability for any smaller-time developers to use their API, yeash! – Anthony Jul 12 '19 at 04:13
  • Times are getting hard for small apps developers... Recently I wanted to display list of restaurants in my app and it turned out that Google would charge me around $25/1000 requests using Google Places API O_O. So I started looking for some alternative. Facebook provides also a nice Places API, so I was getting excited. A few moments later it turned out that Facebook requires contract & business verification also for public data of facebook business pages. So I just can't get the restaurant's post photo without business verification, crazy. – Wojciech Kulik Sep 04 '19 at 14:48