Here’s another reason to dislike Facebook (the world’s frenemy): according to a declaration from NSO CEO Shalev Hulio, two Facebook representatives approached NSO in October 2017 and asked to purchase the right to use certain capabilities of Pegasus. In other words, the company wanted to buy an Apple spying tool, according to Motherboard.
NSO Group Technologies is an Israeli technology firm known for its Pegasus spyware enabling the remote surveillance of smartphones. (An interesting side note: in October 2019, instant messaging company WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook sued NSO under the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.)
Motherboard says that, three years ago, Facebook was in the early stages of deploying a VPN product called Onavo Protect, that, without users’ knowledge, analyzed the web traffic of users who downloaded it to see what other apps they were using. However, it was more effective on Android devices than Apple devices.
“The Facebook representatives stated that Facebook was concerned that its method for gathering user data through Onavo Protect was less effective on Apple devices than on Android devices,” the court filing reads. “The Facebook representatives also stated that Facebook wanted to use purported capabilities of Pegasus to monitor users on Apple devices and were willing to pay for the ability to monitor Onavo Protect users.”
