Facebook has finally identified and is suing an Indian-American software engineer who’s operating in Bangkok for developing and marketing software worldwide that deceives the social network’s advertising reviewing process to enable users to post misleading ads to other users online.
Facebook revealed that Basant Gajjar created a cloaking technique in software that hides the true content of an advertisement, whilst showing users irrelevant ads, essentially tricking Facebook’s review process from identifying inappropriate ads. Gajjar’s illegal software business, which appears to be a success, is called the ‘LeadCloaking’.
The lawsuit outlined how Gajjar’s cloaking software allowed links to ads promoting the sale of crypto currencies, commercial products, remarkable diet pills and also numerous of fake news including the Covid-19 outbreak issues.
Facebook said in the lawsuit that ‘cloaking’ is a vicious technique that impairs ad review systems by concealing the true nature of the website linking to another ad.
Gajjar’s business, also unregistered, has been operating since 2016 and has avoided the ‘watchful eyes’ of the cyber authorities, targets firms like WordPress, Shopify, Oath and Alphabet Google, finally comes to an end.
“This suit will also further our efforts to identify Leadcloak’s customers and take additional enforcement actions against them,” Facebook added.
Source: REUTERS
