Filings detail Meta's Project Ghostbusters to get data analytics about Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon, using Onavo VPN on iOS and Android between 2016 and 2019
GizmodoMaxwell Zeff
Context & Ripple Effects
The filings add detail to a long-running account of how Meta used Onavo: prior reporting said the acquired VPN supplied app-usage intelligence that informed product and acquisition decisions. Meta had also promoted Onavo Protect within its main iOS app, extending the service's reach beyond a standalone utility.
The case sits alongside reporting that other analytics providers used VPN and ad-blocking apps to gather user data, while later coverage found major app developers still collected aggregated data after Apple's tracking changes. The new disclosures make the competitive-surveillance role of a consumer privacy product more concrete.
First-order effects
Meta faces more specific scrutiny over Project Ghostbusters and its collection of usage analytics on Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon through Onavo between 2016 and 2019.
Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon are named as targets of the intelligence-gathering program, clarifying the competitive data Meta sought from the VPN.
Rival platforms and app developers have a stronger incentive to limit data exposure through third-party utilities, especially where aggregated usage signals can reveal competitive activity.
Third-order effects
The episode points to a persistent conflict in mobile ecosystems: tools marketed around privacy can also become data-collection channels when their operator controls the traffic or telemetry.
As platform-level tracking restrictions constrain conventional advertising identifiers, competitive intelligence may increasingly hinge on what data collection remains permissible and visible to users and regulators.
The trend: Consumer utility apps are becoming a central battleground over whether privacy-facing services can also generate strategic market intelligence.
Big shout out to the judge in this ongoing case (a group of advertiser plaintiffs accusing Meta of anticompetitive actions that kept ad prices high) who apparently just woke up last week and decided to unseal some docs from last year without even being asked.
In just unsealed emails, Mark Zuckerberg directed Facebook/Meta leadership to find a way to get around encryption that prevented the co from seeing analytics traffic to rivals like Snapchat. They did figure it out using what was essentially a server traffic redirection tactic — …
Whoa. Facebook had a secret “Project Ghostbusters” (get it?) which allegedly was to decrypt “man-in-the-middle” style Snapchat traffic to copy it. Yellow highlight indicates redactions just lifted in nine unsealed plaintiffs briefs in private antitrust lawsuit. Wild stuff. /1 [im…
Here is the full unsealed docket item including the allegations against Facebook for “wiretapping” Snapchat including the Zuckerberg emails. /6 https://storage.courtlistener.com/ ...
You might recall this case as Facebook paying people to install enterprise-signed apps that happened to intercept your traffic. After the abuse, Apple killed their cert, and Facebook panicked. They couldn't weasel their way out at the time, but the docs are damning.
court also unsealed (in yellow) a brief re: Netflix whose CEO sat on Facebook's board. The lawsuit allegations are Netflix was one of the companies where Facebook backed off competing in exchange for data to boost its ad targeting signals. Emails after @pkafka interview. /4 [imag…
A lot of new stuff. There was lots of reporting (including Apple threats to boot Facebook) at the time on Facebook's software and Onavo acquisition allowing it to “spy” on competitive apps but I recall the decryption was written as a hypothetical. CEO email kickstarting it. /2 [i…