(Getty Images / Drew Angerer)
Remember when Mark Zuckerberg battled the Winklevoss Twins to determine who created Facebook?
The legal process uncovered messages from Zuck that said he wanted to do something (we can’t print here) to the ears of the Winklevoss Twins.
Based on a recent drop of unredacted court filings, it looks like Scrooge McZuck has been doing the same unprintable actions to advertisers.
… which claims that Facebook “knowingly overestimated its ‘potential reach’ metric for advertisers,” writes The Verge.
The core of the lawsuit is that the social media giant didn’t adjust for fake and duplicate accounts.
In one nugget from the filing, Facebook told advertisers it could target 100m people aged 18-34 years old in the US even though there are only 76m people in that age group.
Per The Verge, one Facebook product manager told Sandberg that some revenue should “never [have been] made given the fact that it’s based on the wrong data.”
Another employee added the process was “deeply wrong,” but Facebook neglected to make a fix, saying it would have a significant impact on revenue.
Antitrust expert Matt Stoller notes that Facebook has already been busted on 2 separate occasions for lying to advertisers:
While Facebook has largely avoided major repercussions for its activities, Stoller believes the tide is turning:
In sum, Facebook is facing attacks on its ears business from regulators the world over.