Meta is taking to court a law enforcement intelligence company for gathering data about users of its Facebook and Instagram properties.
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in California, alleges that Voyager Labs, an international scraping and surveillance service, improperly collected data from those properties through fake accounts, which is a violation of the terms and conditions for use of the platforms.
In a January 12 post at Meta’s Newsroom site, Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation Jessica Romero explained that Voyager’s proprietary software uses fake accounts to scrape data accessible to a user logged onto Facebook.
She added that Voyager used a diverse system of computers and networks in different countries to hide its activity and foil Meta’s attempts to verify the fake accounts.
Romero wrote that Voyager did not compromise Facebook; instead, it used fake accounts to scrape publicly viewable information.
“Web scraping is legal — if you are scraping publicly available information,” observed Liz Miller, vice president and a principal analyst with Constellation Research, a technology research and advisory firm in Cupertino, Calif.
“In Meta’s case against Voyager Labs, the issue is the creation of fake Facebook accounts that were used for the purpose of data collection,” Miller told TechNewsWorld.
Scraping Industry
Romero wrote that Meta is seeking a permanent injunction against Voyager to protect people against scraping-for-hire services.
“Companies like Voyager are part of an industry that provides scraping services to anyone regardless of the users they target and for what purpose, including as a way to profile people for criminal behavior,” she continued.
“This industry covertly collects information that people share with their ..
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