July 6, 2022
Meta has sued Ekrem Ateş for using automated Instagram accounts to collect information on more than 360,000 Instagram users. Meta has also sued a scraping-for-hire firm, Octopus. Octopus, a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese multinational technology company, offers data scrapping-for-hire services to individuals and businesses.
Ateş the individual Meta sued published data that was scrapped on a number of clone sites where anyone could view the data of those affected without their consent. Meta says it has taken several enforcement actions against Ekrem Ateş including sending him a cease and desist letter and revoking his access to Meta’s services.
Meta said Octopus had compromised users’ Facebook and Instagram accounts through its software sales and data collection campaigns.
The campaign provides users authentication information to Octopus before proceeding to scrape all the data accessible to that individual’s accounts. The software can then be used to obtain phone numbers, dates of birth, and other personal information about any Facebook and Instagram friend connected to a particular Octopus customer.
The sources for this piece include an article in Engadget.
