Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg once told executives to “figure out” a way to obtain encrypted data from rival Snapchat to gain an edge in the advertising market, according to published court documents. It is said that it approached
Zuckerberg gave the instructions in an email in 2016 to Javier Oliván, formerly Facebook's head of growth and later Meta's chief operating officer, and two other executives. Ta.
At the time, Facebook was facing stiff competition from the rising Snapchat, which had not yet gone public and was rapidly increasing its users.
“When someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is typically that the traffic is encrypted and cannot be analyzed,” Zuckerberg wrote in an email.
“Given how quickly they're growing, it seems important to find new ways to get reliable analysis about them. Perhaps you'll need to create a panel or write custom software. We should think about how to make this happen,” he added.
The emails were revealed this week as part of an ongoing class action lawsuit in California federal court. Meta is accused of misleading users about its data collection practices as part of a broader anticompetitive effort to control the social media market.
Internal efforts to collect useful data about Snapchat usage, known internally by the project name “Ghostbusters” (likely a reference to Snap's logo), were at Zuckerberg's behest, according to the documents. has begun in earnest.
The Post has reached out to Snap for comment.
TechCrunch reports that Facebook employees allegedly used an app called Onavo to fulfill the president's wishes, but the company paid them in exchange for tracking their online habits. It was revealed in 2019 that the facility was closed.
As a result of this effort, Facebook has developed a software “kit” that the company says “can intercept traffic on specific subdomains, read encrypted traffic, and measure in-app usage. ” said the reporter. His July 2016 email cited in the document.
Facebook then used the same tactics to collect sensitive data from rivals such as Alphabet's YouTube and Amazon, the complaint alleges.
“There's nothing new here. This issue has been reported for years,” said a Meta spokesperson. “Plaintiffs' claims are baseless and completely unrelated to this case.”
Meta also hit back with its own court filing on Tuesday.
“Snapchat's own 30(b)(6) witness regarding advertising confirmed that Snap 'could not identify a single ad sale.' [it] “Information lost due to the use of Meta's user research products” means that it is unknown whether other competitors have collected similar information and that any of Meta's research gives Meta a competitive advantage. The application also states that it is unclear whether or not this resulted in sex.
The lawsuit comes after federal lawmakers accused Meta of failing to protect underage users from harmful content that promotes anxiety, depression, body image issues and even self-harm in teens. This is one of the legal issues that is under intense scrutiny.
In October, a coalition of 33 state attorneys general called the parent company of Facebook and Instagram for ignoring “the tremendous damage these platforms have done to the physical and mental health of our nation's youth.” He was accused of “deceptive and illegal conduct.”