Facebook sues Indian American techie over deceptive ads on COVID-19
Facebook has filed a lawsuit against Indian-American software architect Basant Gajjar who violated the companys policies by providing `cloaking software and services designed to circumvent automated ad review systems, and ultimately run deceptive ads on both Facebook and Instagram
Facebook has filed a lawsuit against Indian-American software architect Basant Gajjar who violated the companys policies by providing `cloaking software and services designed to circumvent automated ad review systems, and ultimately run deceptive ads on both Facebook and Instagram.
Gajjar operated under the name 'LeadCloak' and provided ad-cloaking software designed to push fake news and scams related to COVID-19, cryptocurrency, pharmaceuticals, diet pills and fake news pages. Some of cloaked websites also included images of celebrities.
LeadCloak`s software also targeted a number of other technology companies including Google, Oath, WordPress, Shopify, and others, claimed Facebook in its lawsuit filed in federal court in California.
"Cloaking is a malicious technique that impairs ad review systems by concealing the nature of the website linked to an ad," Facebook said in a statement late Thursday.
"When ads are cloaked, a company`s ad review system may see a website showing an innocuous product such as a sweater, but a user will see a different website, promoting deceptive products and services which, in many cases, are not allowed," explained Jessica Romero, Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation at Facebook.
According to Gajjar`s brief profile available on Internet, he is a digital marketer, SaaS expert and Founder and System Architect at LeadCloak.com.
Gajjar earned Bachelor`s Degree in Management Information Systems, General from California State University-Sacramento and Bachelor`s Degree in Computer Science, also from California State University-Sacramento.
In addition to the lawsuit, Facebook said it has taken technical enforcement measures against Leadcloak and accounts that "we`ve determined have used their software, including disabling personal and ad accounts on Facebook and Instagram".
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"This suit will also further our efforts to identify Leadcloak`s customers and take additional enforcement actions against them"
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