Facebook FB has admitted it allowed other big tech companies to read users' private messages, but denies it did so without consent.

The response came in a blog post by the firm Wednesday after a New York Times investigation found that Facebook gave companies including Netflix NFLX , Spotify SPOT and the Royal Bank of Canada RY-CA the ability to read, write and delete users' private messages. The report on Tuesday also said it permitted Microsoft MSFT 's Bing search engine to view the names of nearly all of a Facebook user's friends without consent.

Facebook said it enabled partner companies like Spotify to access users' private messages after a user had signed into Facebook through the partner company's app.

Spokespeople for Spotify and Netflix told the Times they were unaware of the broad powers Facebook had granted them, while an Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) spokesperson disputed the bank had such access.

The Times report, citing hundreds of internal documents and interviews with more than 50 former employees, also said Facebook allowed Amazon AMZN to obtain users' names and contact information through their friends, while Yahoo was able to view streams of friends' posts as recently as this summer. The report suggests Facebook's sharing of personal data extended well beyond what the social media giant had previously disclosed.