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Project Ghostbusters: Meta's method of monitoring users' Snapchat interactions to develop competitive tactics
Meta has been covertly observing its users' Snapchat activity by capturing and decoding the network traffic from users' devices to Snapchat's servers. This operation, known as "Project Ghostbusters," aimed to understand user behaviour on Snapchat, with the intent to create a rival service.
Newly disclosed legal papers from a nationwide lawsuit involving customers and Meta, the umbrella company of Facebook, reveal a clandestine operation started by Facebook in 2016. This operation was designed to intercept and decode the network communication between Snapchat users and its servers.
Named "Project Ghostbusters," the initiative was designed to understand user behavior and strengthen Facebook's competitive position against Snapchat.
The legal papers, disclosed by a federal court in California, provide information on Meta's strategies to outperform competitors such as Snapchat, and subsequent rivals including Amazon and YouTube.
Due to the encryption methods used by these platforms, Facebook had to create advanced technology to overcome encryption obstacles.
A document details Project Ghostbusters as a component of Facebook's In-App Action Panel (IAPP) initiative, using methods to decode encrypted data traffic from Snapchat, eventually extending to YouTube and Amazon users.
Emails from within Facebook's executive team, including its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, highlight the firm's resolve to gather data on Snapchat, even with its encrypted traffic.
Facebook's engineers suggested using Onavo, a service similar to a VPN that Facebook purchased in 2013, to carry out the project. However, Onavo was closed in 2019 after it was disclosed that it had been collecting data from teenagers.
The suggested remedy entailed implementing kits on iOS and Android gadgets, capturing data for certain subdomains to assess in-app activity — a technique often known as a "man-in-the-middle" strategy.
This method enabled Facebook to tap into unencrypted network traffic prior to its encryption, making it easier to measure detailed activity within the app.
Nonetheless, there were opposing opinions within Facebook, notably from Jay Parikh, the former head of infrastructure engineering, and Pedro Canahuati, the prior head of security engineering, who voiced worries about the moral and security consequences of Project Ghostbusters.
Canahuati emphasized unease regarding the absence of approval from the masses and the moral issues raised by these data gathering methods.
Sarah Grabert and Maximilian Klein initiated a collective legal action against Facebook in 2020. They claimed that the social media giant had misled its users regarding its data gathering activities. Furthermore, they alleged that Facebook had used the collected data to single out rivals and engaged in unjust competition against up-and-coming firms. These accusations have cast a harsh spotlight on Facebook's data handling tactics, prompting debates about the moral limits of data gathering and rivalry in the technology sector.
(Incorporating information from various sources)
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