Two data scrapers are being taken to court. The company filed lawsuits against a company called Octopus and an individual named Ekrem Ate. According to Meta, the former is the US subsidiary of a Chinese multinational tech firm that offers data scrapers for hire.
People can use the software to carry out their own campaigns. According to Meta, this program compromises the accounts of the user by giving them theirauthentication information, and then proceeds to steal all the data from that person's accounts. The software can get phone numbers, dates of birth, and other personal information about every friend of a specific customer. Meta claims that Octopus tried to avoid detection by offering an automated scraper service and that it violated its terms of service.
According to Meta, companies like Octopus are part of an emerging scraper industry that provides automation services to any customer. The industry makes it possible for individuals and companies to have access to scrapers.
As for Ekrem Ate, the individual Meta sued, the company says he used automatedInstagram accounts to collect information on more than 350,000instagram users and later published that data on a series of clone sites where one could view the data of those individuals without their consent. Meta says it has taken multiple enforcement actions against Ate since the beginning of the year. This isn't the first time Meta has tried to stop data scrapers. A Turkish national was sued by the company in 2020.
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