A post on Reddit from back on May 6th, 2019 saw a user complaining about the discovery of Nintendo uploading their Facebook data for advertising purposes. This was surmised to be in response to the user both having attached their Facebook account to their Nintendo Switch user ID, and likely making a purchase through the Nintendo eShop.

The post on Reddit wasn’t upvoted much, and the user was joshed for being worried about his Facebook information being peddled off for advertising purposes on behalf of Nintendo.

As noted by GameRant, they speculated that Nintendo’s accounts likely share data lists with advertisers, which could consist of e-mails and phone numbers. The image shared on Reddit shows that Netflix, the Nintendo UK Store, and the Nintendo Switch were a few among some of the companies that shared the user’s Facebook data.

Even though I haven’t logged into my Switch in a while, I attempted to fact check to see if it was true and not a hoax, and it turns out that it’s true. Nintendo Switch appear in the list, as indicated in the screenshot below I pulled from Facebook.

You can reach the page and see what companies have shared your data by going to your Facebook profile, clicking on the blue arrow in the top right hand corner, and then going into Settings. On the left side of the menu there’s a tab for “Ads” that you can click on and then click on “Advertisers and Businesses” and it will show all the businesses that uploaded a list of user manifests that contained your Facebook data.

Now with that being said, the likelihood is that Nintendo uploads your data and advertises products to you based on their services that you use. Of course, there’s no way to know for sure unless they explicit say so, but that’s what’s to be assumed.

Given that Nintendo made it easier to add contacts from Facebook and Twitter to your friends list on the Switch, as reported by The Inquirer, it’s also likely that it makes it easier to be advertised to or to have your info pulled from Facebook for advertisement purposes.

(Thanks for the news tip Red)