Facebook has taken legal action against several developers based in Portugal for unscrupulously extracting data from customers who use the site.
The social network claims that four of its extensions listed on the Chrome Web Store functioned as spyware. In a statement posted to her newsroom, Jessica Romero, Facebook's director of apps for platforms and litigation, said the developers "had misled users by installing the extensions with a privacy policy stating they didn't collect any personal information." .
It added that the extensions hide code designed to retrieve information from Facebook as well as other information from users' browsers without their knowledge and consent.
Spyware extensions
"If the user visited the Facebook website, browser extensions were programmed to retrieve their name, ID, gender, marital status, age range, and other information related to their account." Romero said.
It added that the case was part of Facebook's ongoing international efforts "to detect and enforce sanctions against those who extract data from Facebook users, including those who use browser extensions to compromise people's browsers."
The four extensions it highlighted, namely Web for Instagram plus DM, Blue Messenger, Emoji Keyboard, and Green Messenger, are still available for download on the Chrome Web Store and currently have over 54.000 users.
The developer's response to Facebook's lawsuit is not yet known.
Via: BleepingComputer