It is a fact that Meta Platforms collects and manages a huge pool of data coming from the social networking and messaging applications it controls: Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook. However, it turns out that these data were not enough for the company, as reported by ot.gr.
According to court filings released last week, Meta orchestrated an internal Snapchat spying campaign, in a secret initiative dubbed “Project Ghostbusters». As technology websites reveal, the attempt was made through Onavo, a VPN (virtual private network) service offered by the company between 2016 and 2019.
The emails in question
“Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer will be that because their traffic is encrypted, we don’t have analytics,” Mark Zuckerberg said in an email to three Facebook executives in 2016, which was unsealed during the trial. antitrust case of Meta, last Saturday. “It’s important to figure out a new way to get reliable analytics … You’re going to have to figure out how to do that,” Zuckerberg concludes.
This is how the “Project Ghostbusters». This is essentially Meta’s internal snooping tool for Snapchat analytics from 2016, which would later be used for YouTube and Amazon. According to court filings the program involved creating “kits” that can be installed on iOS and Android devices to control the circulation of certain apps.
In effect, Onavo users acted as “go-betweens” to obtain data for Facebook’s rivals. This data had valuable insights into which new apps were fast growing, such as WhatsApp, which Meta then bought.
But competitor Snapchat’s user data was encrypted, which meant that through Onavo, Facebook couldn’t see what was happening on Snapchat. Zuckerberg in the emails at issue asks Facebook employees, including Javier Oliván (now COO of Meta), that he essentially wanted them to find a way to bypass this encryption.
The irony of the case – Eavesdropping via VPN
As Gizmodo reports, Meta’s Onavo unit has a history of using invasive techniques to collect data from Facebook users. Meta acquired Onavo from an Israeli company more than 10 years ago, promising users private networking like most VPNs do. However, the service was allegedly used to spy on rival social networking apps through the tens of millions of people who downloaded Onavo. It gave Facebook valuable information about competitors, and court filings seem to bear that out.
A team of senior executives and about 41 lawyers worked on Project Ghostbusters, according to court filings. The group was deeply concerned about whether to continue the program in the face of journalistic investigations. Facebook eventually shut down the Onavo unit in 2019 after Apple kicked the VPN out of its online app store.
Prosecutors handling the case also allege Facebook violated US wiretapping laws, which prohibit the intentional procurement of another person’s electronic communications. Onavo could also be considered straight-up spyware, but it also appears to fall within the definition of wiretapping, according to prosecutors.
Meta Platforms’ answer
Court records show conversations and emails that depict Zuckerberg directly involved in those communications. In 2019, an email was sent to Zuckerberg explicitly stating his decision on whether to stop SSL decryption (Project Ghostbusters). However, Meta denies that its CEO had anything to do with the matter.
“The plaintiffs’ allegations are baseless and completely irrelevant to the case,” a Meta spokesperson said, noting that there is “nothing new here” and concluding that this matter has been known for years.
Access to a competitor’s traffic analytics would give Facebook a significant advantage in ad sales, an industry in which Meta has become a dominant force. Prosecutors allege that “Project Ghostbusters” harmed competition in the ad industry, adding weight to their central argument that Meta is a social media monopoly.
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