Facebook admits it used app to ‘know nearly everything’ about users

afr.com:

Meta, the operator of social media platform Facebook, has admitted it used data from software marketed to users as a way to keep their personal data safe as a “business intelligence tool” for its own purposes.

The company acquired Onavo, a virtual private network software app, in 2013 for about $US200 million ($292 million) and marketed it to users as a way to “keep you and your data safe” by keeping their personal activity private.

But internal documents prepared by Meta and its subsidiary Facebook Israel suggested Onavo user data was being used for another purpose. One document read: “The best part about these apps… is that it gives us a sample of users who we are able to know nearly everything they are doing on their mobile device.”

Mark Zuckerberg chief executive of Meta, which has agreed to pay a $20 million fine for conduct that was likely to mislead or deceive. Bloomberg

The data, which was aggregated and anonymised, was used to help advertisers “identify local competitors, notice big trends, find overlaps in use, benchmark your performance in significant-margin differences, notice a shift in consumer attention”, the same document added.

Details of the internal Meta documents are contained in new filings in the Federal Court. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sued Meta, then known as Facebook, in December 2020 over the marketing of Onavo. The ACCC has not made any public comment about the matter since filing its complaint, but documents show the regulator and two Meta subsidiaries – Facebook Israel and Onavo – have reached an agreement for the social media company to pay a $20 million fine.

The Meta firms and the ACCC have also agreed that the marketing of Onavo, which was used by about 270,000