Meta inflated a crucial advertising metric by nearly 20 per cent and deliberately bypassed privacy rules on Apple iPhones in a bid to boost revenues, a former staff member has told an employment tribunal.
The social media platform is alleged to have misled advertisers over the financial performance of its “Shops Ads” — adverts introduced in 2022 for brands that host digital storefronts on Facebook and Instagram — by using gross rather than net sales figures, according to legal filings submitted on Wednesday.
Former Meta product manager Samujjal Purkayastha said the approach contrasts to how it calculated the performance of non-shopping advertising, which typically excluded the value of shipping and taxes, as well as the approach typically taken by rivals such as Google.
He claimed Meta was aware of the discrepancy but failed to disclose it to brands, alleging that an internal investigation had found that the performance of Shops Ads had been inflated by between 17 and 19 per cent.
Meta also secretly linked user data with other information to track users’ activity on other websites without their permission — despite Apple in 2021 introducing measures explicitly requiring consent, according to Purkayastha’s filings.
The claims were part of an application submitted to the Central London Employment Tribunal by Purkayastha to remain an employee until his claim of unfair dismissal had been adjudicated. The former Meta product manager said he was laid off in February this year after repeatedly raising concerns internally at Meta about the practices.