Meta Sues Voyager Labs for Allegedly Scraping User Data through Fake Accounts
Meta has filed a complaint against Voyager Labs on Thursday, alleging that the startup created fake Facebook accounts as part of a scheme to collect information from real Facebook users, which it then used for its own business purposes. According to the filing in the District Court for the Northern District of California, Meta alleged that Voyager Labs created over 38,000 fake Facebook user accounts. These helped the startup scrape publicly posted information from more than 600,000 other Facebook users, including things like posts, likes, photos, and lists of friends.
Voyager Labs specializes in investigative software and services intended to help law enforcement and companies obtain information about suspects, among other uses. Meta alleged that Voyager Labs’ software was powered by data that it improperly gathered from Facebook and Instagram in addition to other sites like Twitter, YouTube, Twitter, and Telegram.
Meta attorneys wrote in the 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 disabled over 60,000 Voyager Labs-related Facebook and Instagram accounts and pages, which also included at least 38,000 fake accounts, the attorneys said.
The company is asking the court to force Voyager Labs to give up its “ill-gotten profits in an amount to be proven at trial.” and also seeking damages and an injunctive relief to stop Voyager Labs’ use of its platforms and services. This case follows similar actions taken by Meta against other companies that it alleged to be scraping user data. This includes a similar data-scraping court case involving LinkedIn and the enterprise startup hiQ, which the Microsoft-owned social network alleged was scraping user data to fuel its human resources software.
