- Facebook has filed a lawsuit against Hong-Kong based ILikeAd Media and two Chinese citizens over ad fraud
Facebook has filed a lawsuit against a Hong-Kong based company called ILikeAd Media International Company and two Chinese citizens — Chen Xiao Cong and Huang Tao — according to BuzzFeed. In the lawsuit, Facebook said that this group allegedly used malware for compromising user accounts in order to set up deceptive Facebook ads — which often featured celebrities to push counterfeit products and diet pills. The lawsuit was filed in California.
In the lawsuit, Facebook claims that Cong (Wuhan, Hubei province, China) created the malware and Tao (Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China) set up the “distribution and installation of the malicious extension.”
Facebook’s director of product management for business integrity Rob Leathern had told BuzzFeed News that the lawsuit is a way to “create consequences for these folks outside of shutting down their ad accounts and preventing them from using the platform.”
And Leathern said that the scheme “affected folks in multiple countries and is something we began investigating in late 2018.”
This is not the only company Facebook sued for ad fraud this year. In August, Facebook sued two Chinese app makers for allegedly committing ad fraud by building programming bots to click on Facebook Ads. And in March, Facebook also filed a lawsuit against two Ukrainians for allegedly using malware to steal user data.
To deploy the malware, Facebook said these the defendants tricked users into installing the malware by bundling it into other apps. And after it was installed, the malware compromised the Facebook user who installed it. Then those accounts were used for running ads that misused the images of celebrities to sell counterfeit products and diet pills. And then the victim was billed for running the ads. Facebook had reimbursed the victims over $4 million.
The strategy the hackers used is known as cloaking. And by using images of celebrities in ads, it entices people to click on them — which is a practice known as “celeb bait.”
“Cloaking schemes are often sophisticated and well organized, making the individuals and organizations behind them difficult to identify and hold accountable. As a result, there have not been many legal actions of this kind. In this case, we have refunded victims whose accounts were used to run unauthorized ads and helped them to secure their accounts,” wrote Leathern and Facebook Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation Jessica Romero in a blog post. “To protect Facebook users and disrupt these types of schemes, we will continue our work to detect malicious behavior directed towards our platform and enforce against violations of our Terms and Policies. Creating real world consequences for those who deceive users and engage in cloaking schemes is important in maintaining the integrity of our platform.”
