Court documents unsealed on March 23 that were filed last April as part of a major anti-trust lawsuit against Meta appear to have exposed the intricate relationship between two of Silicon Valley's biggest players.
The class-action lawsuit, filed by two US citizens, Maximilian Klein and Sarah Grabert, alleged Netflix and Facebook 'enjoyed a special relationship', with the social media platform giving the streaming site 'bespoke access' to user data.
The two Silicon Valley players also agreed to 'custom partnerships and integrations that helped supercharge Facebook’s ad targeting and ranking models' from at least 2011, thanks to the personal relationship between Netflix's co-founder Reed Hastings and Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Lawyers alleged that 'within a month' of Hastings joining Facebook's board of directors, the two companies signed an 'Inbox API' (Application Programming Interface) agreement that 'allowed Netflix programmatic access to Facebook’s user’s private message inboxes.'
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Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) had a 'special relationship' with Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings
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In exchange, Netflix would provide a report to Facebook, which changed its name to Meta in October 2021, every fortnight that showed how its own users interacted with the platform.
Meta, along with much of Silicon Valley, has been forced to pay millions of dollars in fines for the way it handles the private information of its users.
In 2022, Ireland fined Meta €265 million ($284 million) after data about more than half a billion users leaked online.
Full names, phone numbers, locations and birthdays of users who used the platform between 2018 and 2019 were leaked online by a 'bad actor' who Meta said exploited a security vulnerability.
That same year, Meta agreed to pay $725million to settle a security breach case related to Cambridge Analytica, the British social media engineering company that was brought into the limelight after its role in the Brexit vote and the 2016 presidential election was exposed.
The data firm, largely owned by billionaire Robert Mercer, improperly obtained Facebook data to build profiles on millions of voters, which was then used to sway elections across the world.
Mercer invested at least $15million in Cambridge Analytica and his daughter Rebekah was a board member of the data firm.
Facebook's former chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, said in 2018 that as many as 87 million Facebook users had their data improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, 37 million more than the initial estimate of 50 million.
His successor, Andrew Bosworth, said in leaked internal memo in 2020 that the Cambridge Analytica scandal was a 'non-event', claiming: '[Cambridge Analytica] were snake oil salespeople. The tools they used didn't work, and the scale they used them at wasn't meaningful.'
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The class-action lawsuit, filed by two US citizens, Maximilian Klein and Sarah Grabert, alleged Netflix and Facebook 'enjoyed a special relationship', with the social media platform giving the streaming site 'bespoke access' to user data.
The two Silicon Valley players also agreed to 'custom partnerships and integrations that helped supercharge Facebook’s ad targeting and ranking models' from at least 2011, thanks to the personal relationship between Netflix's co-founder Reed Hastings and Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Lawyers alleged that 'within a month' of Hastings joining Facebook's board of directors, the two companies signed an 'Inbox API' (Application Programming Interface) agreement that 'allowed Netflix programmatic access to Facebook’s user’s private message inboxes.'
+5
View gallery
+5
View gallery
Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) had a 'special relationship' with Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings
+5
View gallery
In exchange, Netflix would provide a report to Facebook, which changed its name to Meta in October 2021, every fortnight that showed how its own users interacted with the platform.
Meta, along with much of Silicon Valley, has been forced to pay millions of dollars in fines for the way it handles the private information of its users.
In 2022, Ireland fined Meta €265 million ($284 million) after data about more than half a billion users leaked online.
Full names, phone numbers, locations and birthdays of users who used the platform between 2018 and 2019 were leaked online by a 'bad actor' who Meta said exploited a security vulnerability.
That same year, Meta agreed to pay $725million to settle a security breach case related to Cambridge Analytica, the British social media engineering company that was brought into the limelight after its role in the Brexit vote and the 2016 presidential election was exposed.
The data firm, largely owned by billionaire Robert Mercer, improperly obtained Facebook data to build profiles on millions of voters, which was then used to sway elections across the world.
Mercer invested at least $15million in Cambridge Analytica and his daughter Rebekah was a board member of the data firm.
Facebook's former chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, said in 2018 that as many as 87 million Facebook users had their data improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, 37 million more than the initial estimate of 50 million.
His successor, Andrew Bosworth, said in leaked internal memo in 2020 that the Cambridge Analytica scandal was a 'non-event', claiming: '[Cambridge Analytica] were snake oil salespeople. The tools they used didn't work, and the scale they used them at wasn't meaningful.'
Full Story:
Facebook 'let Netflix see user DMs to help them tailor content'
Newly unsealed court documents that were filed as part of a major anti-trust lawsuit against Meta appear to have exposed the intricate relationship between two of Silicon Valley's biggest players.
