In what appears to be a pattern of behavior reaching back a decade, Meta is said to have lied about ad performance numbers while quietly sidestepping Apple's iPhone safeguards.
Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) arrived in 2021 with a clear message. Apps had to ask iPhone users before tracking them across other apps and websites.
Most people declined, which cut off the flow of user data that targeted advertising depends on. Meta quickly became the poster child for ATT's impact.
The company told investors in 2022 that Apple's changes would cost it about $10 billion in lost revenue that year. It was a financial earthquake for a business almost entirely built on selling ads.
A filing at the Central London Employment Tribunal, reported by The Financial Times, suggests Meta didn't play by Apple's rules. Former product manager Samujjal Purkayastha alleges the company used "deterministic matching" to link data across platforms.
That means identifiable details, not anonymous signals, were tied together to track behavior without consent. If true, Meta found a a back door through Apple's privacy wall.
ATT was written to block that exact practice, and Apple warned developers that bypassing it could lead to apps being pulled from the App Store. Meta didn't respond to questions about the claim during the hearing.
Purkayastha was fired, and claims that his whistleblowing was the reason why.
Inflated ad performance
The tracking issue wasn't the only allegation. Purkayastha also says Meta exaggerated the performance of its Shops Ads, a format launched in 2022 for digital storefronts on Facebook and Instagram.
Instead of counting net sales like rivals such as Google, Meta reportedly used gross figures that included shipping and taxes. That choice allegedly inflated results by up to 19%.
Apps must abide by App Tracking Transparency rules
Internal investigations confirmed the inflation, according to Purkayastha, but advertisers weren't told. Inflated numbers gave the impression Shops Ads were more successful than they really were.
Subsidies and secret budgets
The filings also point to heavy subsidies. Purkayastha claims Mark Zuckerberg personally authorized a $160 million budget for free ad placements during testing.
While subsidies aren't unusual in tech launches, not disclosing them risks leaving brands with a skewed view of value. The company also tried to use machine learning to make up for data lost under ATT.
Those efforts reportedly failed to solve what insiders call "signal loss." The fallback, Purkayastha says, was the more aggressive use of deterministic matching.
Why it matters
If Meta really circumvented ATT, it raises sharp questions about enforcement. Apple framed ATT as a major win for user privacy, but it relies on companies to comply in good faith.
A large player secretly dodging the rules would expose limits in Apple's ability to police its ecosystem. It also highlights the uneasy balance between two tech giants with different business models.
The tribunal won't rule on the full case until 2026
Apple presents itself as the guardian of user privacy, though critics point out it's also building its own ad business. Meta, for its part, needs data to keep its ad targeting sharp, and has a long record of stretching the boundaries of trust.
The bigger picture
Meta's history with inflated numbers runs back years. In 2016, it admitted overstating average video ad view times by up to 80% for nearly two years.
A 2018 lawsuit alleged the errors were even larger, with metrics off by as much as 900%, and Meta settled for $40 million. Advertisers also sued over Meta's "Potential Reach" metric, arguing it exaggerated campaign audience size.
Courts allowed the case to move forward in 2022, and the Supreme Court refused to dismiss it in January 2025. For critics, the Shops Ads claims look less like a one-off slip and more like a recurring pattern.
Advertisers have long grumbled that Meta's closed system makes independent verification difficult. Purkayastha's claims fit that pattern.
Inflated performance reports and hidden tracking both suggest a company struggling to adapt after Apple cut off its main data pipeline. For advertisers, it's another reminder that the numbers they see may not always tell the full story.
The tribunal won't rule on the full case until 2026, but the allegations paint a picture of Meta taking shortcuts to keep ad dollars flowing. Apple's ATT was supposed to give iPhone users control over their data, yet the filing suggests Meta worked around those limits in secret.
Even if the claims don't result in legal punishment, they sharpen a familiar narrative. Meta is addicted to user data, Apple is profiting from playing privacy gatekeeper, and advertisers are left trying to trust numbers that don't always add up.
