Facebook let Netflix see user DMs to help them tailor content as part of a close collaboration between the two tech giants, new court documents claims

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, allegedly allowed Netflix to look at its users’ direct messages “for nearly a decade” to help the streaming giant better tailor content to its own users, an explosive lawsuit alleges.

Newly revealed court documents filed as part of a major antitrust lawsuit against Meta appear to have exposed the intricate relationship between two of Silicon Valley’s biggest players.

The class action lawsuit, filed by two U.S. citizens, Maximilian Klein and Sarah Grabert, alleged that Netflix and Facebook “enjoyed a special relationship,” with the social media platform giving the streaming site “personalized access” to user data. .

The two Silicon Valley players also agreed to “custom partnerships and integrations that helped power Facebook’s ad targeting and ranking models” since at least 2011, thanks to the personal relationship between Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.

The lawyers alleged that “a month” after Hastings joined Facebook’s board, the two companies signed an “Inbox API” agreement that “allowed Netflix programmatic access to private message inboxes.” of Facebook users.

In exchange, Netflix would provide a report to Facebook, which changed its name to Meta in October 2021, every fortnight that would show how its own users were interacting with the platform.

Silicon Valley has been criticized for its use of personal data and Meta has been forced to pay millions of dollars in fines.

In 2022, Ireland fined Meta €265 million ($284 million) after data on more than 500 million users was leaked online.

The full names, phone numbers, locations and birthdays of users who used the platform between 2018 and 2019 were leaked online by a “bad actor” who Meta said exploited a security vulnerability.

That same year, Meta agreed to pay $725 million to settle a security breach case involving Cambridge Analytica, the British social media engineering company that rose to prominence after its role in the Brexit vote was revealed and the 2016 presidential elections.

The data company, largely owned by billionaire Robert Mercer, improperly obtained data from Facebook to create profiles of millions of voters, which were then used to influence elections around the world.

MailOnline has contacted Meta and Netflix for comment.