A federal court in California has uncovered evidence accusing Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, of secretly monitoring users of Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon through its covert project named ‘Project Ghostbusters.’ The project, launched in 2016, aimed to intercept and decode network traffic to understand user behavior and gain a competitive edge over Snapchat.
Internal discussions among Facebook executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, revealed efforts to access encrypted data from Snapchat for analytics purposes. The project expanded to include monitoring traffic from Amazon and YouTube as well, involving a team of approximately 41 lawyers and senior executives.
Despite ambitions to gather competitive intelligence, concerns were raised within Facebook about the ethical implications and privacy concerns associated with intercepting encrypted traffic. Executives such as Jay Parikh and Pedro Canahuati expressed reservations about the project’s legitimacy, highlighting internal dissent regarding user privacy and data collection practices.
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The controversy surrounding ‘Project Ghostbusters’ adds to Facebook’s history of privacy violations, including the shutdown of Onavo in 2019 following revelations of covert data collection practices. The latest revelations raise serious questions about Meta Platforms’ commitment to user privacy and ethical data practices, prompting calls for better transparency and accountability from tech giants.
