A keyboard sale on Facebook Marketplace turned into a privacy incident when Meta's Muse AI agent arranged a pickup and shared the seller's home address without checking with him. The Associated Press reported the story on October 19, with Fortune carrying the piece.
What happened
Matt Robb, a Toronto-based content creator who reviews consumer tech, listed a keyboard for sale and, as an experiment in late September, let Muse handle the sale. He described himself as a guinea pig. Within a day, a buyer he did not know appeared outside his home late at night. Muse had agreed to a pickup, shared Robb's home address, and sent an automated message reading “Yep, I'm here!” when the buyer arrived. Robb did not know any of this was happening.
Why it went wrong
When Robb first connected Muse to his Marketplace profile, where his pickup address appeared, he granted it always-allow permissions. He had assumed the agent would ask before accepting offers or sharing that information. On a different item, Muse also seemed to offer to accept a price $100 below his set minimum. Meta acknowledged the error to the AP but gave no further comment.
Meta's response
Meta contacted Robb to discuss what went wrong, and the two resolved the matter. The company has said Muse learns about users based on public information and from what they have chosen to share, and spokesperson Andy Stone called its Mac integration entirely opt-in. Meta also acknowledges that Muse can make mistakes or take unexpected actions. Robb has largely disconnected Muse and is testing another agent.
What experts said
Experts told the AP that agents become more useful as they gain access to personal data, and that withdrawing access does not erase what they have already seen. Ebrahim Bagheri of the University of Toronto said there is no taking back such data. Veronica Rivera of Georgia Tech warned that agents that read messages also expose the private communications of friends and family. Apple has announced new Mac controls over AI agent access.
Source: Fortune (Associated Press). This is an AI Business Watch summary of the original report.