Today, Facebook has announced that it is taking legal action against two people, one in the U.K. and the other in the U.S. The firm says that they violated its Terms of Service. Fatih Haltas is being sued at the U.K.’s High Court of Justice while Nikolay Holper is being sued in the federal court of San Francisco.
Fatih Haltas is being sued for failing to fully comply with Facebook’s audit request after MobiBurn collected user data from Facebook and other social media companies. It was able to collect this data by paying app developers to install malicious Software Development Kit (SDK) in their apps.
When people installed apps with the malicious SDK, MobiBurn was able to collect data that the app requested from Facebook including a person’s name, time zone, email address, and gender. Facebook highlighted that it was not compromised, rather the apps that users installed were.
In the case of Nikolay Holper, he is accused of operating a fake engagement service called Nakrutka that used a network of bots and automated software to generate fake likes, comments, views and followers on Instagram. Accounts associated with Holper and his service were disabled, he was formally warned that he was violating Facebook’s Terms of Service, and he received a cease and desist letter.
Facebook believes that these measures will help to protect users of its services. It also said that these actions are designed to hold those accountable who misuse its services.
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