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Facebook Flat-Out 'Lies' About How Many People Can See Its Ads, Lawsuit Alleges (theregister.co.uk)
A new lawsuit claims that Facebook exaggerates how many people can see its ads, thereby defrauding advertisers. "In other words, it is alleged not quite as many eyeballs are seeing Facebook's ads as its salespeople charge for," writes Thomas Claburn via The Register. From the report: In a complaint filed on Wednesday in a US district court in Oakland, California, plaintiffs Danielle Singer and her company Project Therapy, LLC claim the Potential Reach and Estimated Daily Reach figures that Facebook provides to advertisers are wildly inflated. As an example, the complaint claims that Facebook's purported Potential Reach among 18-to-34-year-olds in each U.S. state is greater the actual population of 18-to-34-year-olds in each of those states.
"Based on a combination of publicly available research and Plaintiffs' own analysis, among 18-34 years-olds in Chicago, for example, Facebook asserted its Potential Reach was approximately 4 times (400 per cent) higher than the number of real 18-34 year-olds with Facebook accounts in Chicago," the complaint states. And in Kansas City, the complaint asserts, the number provided by Facebook was 200 per cent higher than the actual number of 18-to-54-year-olds with Facebook accounts in the area. What's more, the court filing contends that former Facebook employees, described as confidential witnesses, have acknowledged that Facebook is fine with inflated numbers. The attorneys representing Singer and her biz, which supposedly spent over $14,000 on Facebook ads, are seeking class-action certification in order to represent other affected Facebook advertisers. According to the complaint, "a former Facebook employee who worked in the infrastructure/mapping team stated that those who were responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Potential Reach at Facebook were indifferent to the actual numbers and in fact 'did not give a sh--.'" They also said the "Potential Reach" statistic is "like a made-up PR number."
"Based on a combination of publicly available research and Plaintiffs' own analysis, among 18-34 years-olds in Chicago, for example, Facebook asserted its Potential Reach was approximately 4 times (400 per cent) higher than the number of real 18-34 year-olds with Facebook accounts in Chicago," the complaint states. And in Kansas City, the complaint asserts, the number provided by Facebook was 200 per cent higher than the actual number of 18-to-54-year-olds with Facebook accounts in the area. What's more, the court filing contends that former Facebook employees, described as confidential witnesses, have acknowledged that Facebook is fine with inflated numbers. The attorneys representing Singer and her biz, which supposedly spent over $14,000 on Facebook ads, are seeking class-action certification in order to represent other affected Facebook advertisers. According to the complaint, "a former Facebook employee who worked in the infrastructure/mapping team stated that those who were responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Potential Reach at Facebook were indifferent to the actual numbers and in fact 'did not give a sh--.'" They also said the "Potential Reach" statistic is "like a made-up PR number."
Back in the 80's, fake London newpapers would call advertisers and offer them advertising print runs in the "Islington & Highgate Gazette" of 50,000. Newspapers like this were fake, non-existent, they had plausible sounding names but little else. They'd ring advertisers seen in real media, get bookings, print off 50,000 copies, send one to each of the advertisers, and one for their lawyers, then pulp the rest. Then the same company would ring them about advertising in the "Chiswick and Hounslow Courier" with a print run of 100,000.... The Newspapers were a few stock articles and mostly adverts from companies suckered in.
The BBC, set up a anonymous facebook page with zero advertising and zero reason for people to like it, and they got loads of likes from across the world. What struck me is how Facebook must be behind that, because how else would the people in third world countries *know* about the new pages, let alone who would *pay* them to like these pages? I assumed it was to puff up FB's numbers prior to its IPO.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/29505104
Facebook claimed it was companies paying third parties to like the page to make it more popular.... but the BBC DID NOT PAY OR TELL ANYONE ABOUT ITS 'Virtual Bagel' empty FB page. So Facebooks explanation about these likes seems false.
So now you're telling me they lie to advertisers and the lies are whoppers, easily verified to be fake.... well yeh, but FB were never prosecuted for the alleged securities fraud last time, because there was no proof, and they won't be this time, because they'll pretend a 'reach' number is some vague metric without legal meaning.
Just like the newspapers I mentioned.... they never said "sales of 50000", they said "print run of 50000" .