Facebook files lawsuit against developers for scraping user data

According to ZDNet, Facebook has filed a lawsuit in Portugal against two developers for developing browser extensions that scraped user data from Facebook websites. Jessica Romero, Facebook’s Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation, stated that “when people installed these extensions on their browsers, they were installing concealed code designed to scrape their information from the Facebook website, but also information from the users’ browsers unrelated to Facebook — all without their knowledge.” Facebook said it found data collection-related malicious behavior inside four extensions named Web for Instagram plus DM, Blue Messenger, Emoji keyboard, and Green Messenger, which Facebook said “functioned like spyware.”