To help the US-based Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with their investigation of Facebook’s business practices, Snap has created a dossier, humorously named after the famous Harry Potter “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” dark wizard, Voldemort.
“Project Voldemort” details Facebook's alleged business practices, including discouraging famous account holders and influencers from referencing Snapchat in their Instagram accounts, media reported on Monday.
“Project Voldemort” also reportedly has details of how Facebook incorporated Snapchat features into its own photo-messaging app, Instagram.
Two key innovations, 24-hour format-based “Stories” and Augmented Reality (AR) Lenses, were first introduced by Snapchat, and later made their way into Facebook’s family of apps, including its instant messaging app WhatsApp.
Earlier in July, the FTC slammed Facebook with a huge $5 billion fine for violating users’ privacy in the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Facebook allegedly compromised the personal data of over 87 million users and exposed it to the British consulting firm for political advertising purposes.
For making misleading disclosures regarding the risk of user-data misuse, Facebook has also been slapped with a $100 million penalty by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Earlier in September, Facebook revealed in a blog post that for over a year, the company has been suspending “tens of thousands” of apps from more than 400 developers over issues concerning user-data privacy.
