Meta Settles Lawsuit Against Businesses Scraping Facebook, Instagram Data

Meta has settled a lawsuit against two companies that had engaged in data scraping operations, which had seen them gathering data from Facebook and Instagram users for marketing intelligence purposes.

According to the original complaint filed in October 2020, Israeli-based BrandTotal Ltd. and Delaware-incorporated Unimania Inc., have been unlawfully gathering users' data. Together, the two companies developed and distributed products under the brand names UpVoice, Social One, Phoenix, Anonymous Story Viewer, Story Savebox, Calix and Restricted Panel.

Meta's complaint specifically mentioned two browser extensions offered by the companies: Unimania’s “Ads Feed” and BrandTotal’s “UpVoice.” The former had allowed users to save the ads they saw on Facebook for later reference, but also opted users into a panel that informed the advertising decisions of Unimania’s corporate clients. UpVote had rewarded users with gift cards for sharing their opinions about the online campaigns run by brands.

Now, the companies are banned from scraping Facebook and Instagram data going forward or profiting from the data they collected.

They also agreed to pay a “significant financial sum” as part of their settlement. Meta did not disclose the sum paid and court filings didn’t specify the amount.

The companies also agreed to delete their software and code and ban distributing or selling any data they collected through their operations.