Meta is suing a company that allegedly created tens of thousands of fake Facebook accounts to extract user data and provide spying services for clients.
Voyager Labs, the company that Meta is suing, provided a large number of social media post analysis services to make claims against an individual. For example, in 2021 Voyager Labs claims to be able to predict which individuals are likely to commit future crimes.
In a blog post announcing the lawsuit, Meta said Voyager Labs had violated its terms of service. Meta accuses Voyager Labs of creating more than 38,000 fake Facebook accounts and using spying services to collect data from Facebook and Instagram without permission.
Voyager Labs also collects data from other sites, including Twitter, YouTube, and Telegram.
"Companies like Voyager are part of an industry that provides data mining services to anyone regardless of the user they are targeting and for what purpose, including as a way to profile an individual for criminal behavior," said Jessica Romero, Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation Meta, as quoted from The Verge, Saturday (14/1/2023).
"This industry surreptitiously collects information that people share with their communities, family and friends, without scrutiny or accountability, and in a way that could affect an individual's civil rights," he continued.
Meta said Voyager Labs used fake accounts to scrape data belonging to 600,000 Facebook users between July 2022 and September 2022. The company made by Mark Zuckerberg said it had deactivated more than 60,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts and pages associated with Voyager Labs.
In its lawsuit, Meta asked Voyager Labs to stop violating its terms of service and asked the court to ban the company from using Facebook, Instagram and other services related to the two platforms.
Meta also claims Voyager Labs has enriched itself and asked them to pay compensation to Meta for profits not legally obtained, the amount of which will be proven in court.