Girard Sharp on September 21, 2022 filed a class action complaint against Meta Platforms, Inc. alleging that users’ private browsing activity and communications were intercepted, monitored and recorded while using Facebook’s in-app browser without their consent.

Do you use the Instagram or Facebook app and are you concerned that your data may be collected without your consent? You may have a claim. Contact a Girard Sharp data privacy attorney by calling toll-free at (866) 981-4800 or filling out the form below.

More About the Meta In-App Browser Data Tracking Investigation

A recent blog post from researcher and Google consultant Felix Krause suggests that Meta has the ability to access a variety of user data when users click a link or ad within the Instagram or Facebook app. Instagram and Facebook use a custom browser to load links and ads that users click on in its apps, rather than an external browser like Safari. This practice allows Meta to bypass third-party data tracking limitations and input its tracking code into the custom browser. Meta can then track user data and actions, which could include buttons and links tapped, text selections, or screenshots, as well as form inputs such as passwords, addresses, or credit card numbers.

If you use Instagram or Facebook and have clicked on an ad or link within the apps, speak to an attorney about your data privacy rights. Call us toll-free at (866) 981-4800 or fill out the form above.

Speak to a Lawyer

Our Commitment to Excellence

Girard Sharp has earned national Tier 1 rankings for Mass Tort and Class Action Litigation and has been named to the U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” list each year since 2013. Read about some of our results.

Our firm is a nationally recognized leader in class action litigation and arbitration of claims brought by consumers alleging privacy invasions, manufacturing defects, and false advertising. We are committed to advancing and protecting the rights of every citizen to control their own personal information and be free of hidden or undisclosed tracking.

In previous cases, we have successfully applied privacy laws on behalf of our clients to lead litigation that held websites and other companies accountable for alleged privacy violations. For example, in the Lenovo spyware litigation, Girard Sharp and its co-lead counsel negotiated a favorable settlement after the court certified a nationwide class of computer purchasers whose online activities were surreptitiously monitored by pre-installed software that degraded the computers’ performance, operating continuously in the background as it analyzed browsing activity and injected ads into visited webpages.

As lead counsel in the OPM data breach litigation, we obtained a reversal of the dismissal of claims brought on behalf of 22 million federal employees and job applicants whose highly personal facts were hacked and stolen. We then negotiated a settlement that, pending court approval, will provide for minimum $700 payments to class members with compensable loss. Similarly, in Corona v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, we represented Sony employees in the wake of a cyberattack attributed to North Korea as retaliation for the parody film The Interview. Girard Sharp and its co-lead counsel secured a settlement that fully reimbursed class members’ actual losses and provided extended credit monitoring—a structure adopted in many subsequent data breach settlement.

We also represented non-Yahoo subscribers whose emails with Yahoo email subscribers were illegally intercepted and scanned by Yahoo. As a result of our litigation efforts, Yahoo restructured its email delivery architecture so that incoming and outgoing email traffic is no longer intercepted while in transit—bringing its scanning practices into compliance with federal law—and fairly disclosed its email scanning practices. The Honorable Lucy H. Koh noted that “Class Counsel achieved these benefits” after prosecuting the case for the affected individuals “in an effective and cost-efficient manner.” 2016 WL 4474612 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 25, 2016).