Meta filed a lawsuit about Voyager Labs, claiming that the company set up bogus Facebook profiles to gather data from actual Facebook users, which it later used for its own business needs. As per the filing at the District Court for the Northern District of California, Meta claimed that there were over 38,000 fake Facebook accounts.
The complaint said, “Meta seeks damages and injunctive relief to stop Defendant’s use of its platforms and services.”
Voyager Labs specializes in investigative tools and services that assist law enforcement, and businesses in learning more about suspects. Meta claimed that Voyager Labs inappropriately collected data from not only Facebook but also Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, and other websites to fuel its software.
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Over 60,000 Voyager Labs-related Facebook and Instagram identities and pages, including the 38,000 fraudulent accounts, were eventually removed by Meta.
Meta’s complaint is similar to a data-scraping court case between LinkedIn and Microsoft-owned social network hiQ in December 2022, with a settlement worth US$500,000. Moreover, in September 2022, Meta settled another case with BrandTotal and Unimania, which ultimately stopped “using and scraping Instagram and Facebook.”
