Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta Platforms Inc., left, arrives in federal court in San Jose, California, US, Tuesday, December 20, 2022.
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Meta filed a complaint against Voyager Labs on Friday, alleging that the startup created a fake Facebook account as part of a plan to collect information from real Facebook users, which they then used for their own business purposes.
Voyager Labs specializes in investigative software and services intended to help law enforcement and companies obtain information about suspects, among other uses. Meta said Voyager Labs software was powered by improperly collected data from Facebook and Instagram in addition to other sites like Twitter, YouTube, Twitter, and Telegram.
According to a filing in the District Court for the Northern District of California, Meta alleges that Voyager Labs created more than 38,000 fake Facebook user accounts. It helps the startup scrape publicly posted information from more than 600,000 other Facebook users, including posts, likes, photos, and friend lists. “Scraping” generally refers to the automated process of using software to scan web pages and collect information about them.
Meta’s lawyers wrote in a legal filing that the company sent a letter to Voyager Labs on November 11 demanding that the startup stop violating the company’s terms of service. Meta eventually killed more than 60,000 Voyager Labs-related Facebook and Instagram accounts and pages, which also included at least 38,000 fake accounts, lawyers said.
“Defendant’s conduct is not authorized by Meta and violates Facebook and Instagram’s terms of service, as well as California law,” the complaint states. “Accordingly, Meta seeks compensatory and injunctive relief to stop Defendant’s use of the platform and services.”
The company also asked the court to force Voyager Labs to hand over “unearned profits in an amount that will be proven in court.”
CNBC reached out to Voyager Labs for comment.
Meta’s complaint follows a similar data breach court case involving LinkedIn and the company’s startup hiQ, which Microsoftowned social network allegedly scraping user data to fuel human resources software.
After a years-long legal battle, LinkedIn and hiQ finally settled in December 2022 with a $500,000 judgment against hiQ, following a mixed ruling in a California district court in November. Like Meta, LinkedIn claims that hiQ violates the company’s terms of service through data scraping.
The case has drawn the attention of privacy advocates and researchers who are concerned that the results could undermine the work of journalists and watchdog groups that use automation software to monitor public websites and corporate accountability.
Meta’s lawsuit against Voyager Labs follows similar actions the social networking giant has taken against other companies for allegedly scraping user data.
For example, in Sep, 2022, Meta settled with the companies BrandTotal and Unimania, which agreed to stop “using and scraping Facebook and Instagram,” Meta said in another blog post.
Meta’s various legal actions to improve data privacy occurred after the scandal of the well-known company Cambridge Analytica in 2018, where the political consulting company did not obtain user profile data in different ways (not scraping).