Lawsuit says Facebook and Instagram should have been upfront about how its browser gathers data.
Meta is being sued for allegedly gathering personally identifiable information (PII) on its Facebook and Instagram users without telling them.
As per the lawsuit, the problem lies in how the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms handle internet links on an iOS device. Both apps have their own embedded internet browsers (opens in new tab), the WKWebView, which render the pages when a user clicks on a link (as opposed to opening the links in, say, Safari, or Chrome).
On the user’s side, clicking a link would make it seem as if the app opened the page, rather than as if it was opened in a separate app. However, the plaintiffs say that the browser also injects JavaScript code that gathers data – something other browsers wouldn’t be able to do.
“When users click on a link within the Facebook app, Meta automatically directs them to the in-app browser it is monitoring instead of the smartphone’s default browser, without telling users that this is happening or they are being tracked,” the lawsuit says.
