As a company, Facebook makes a huge portion of its revenue from targeted advertising. That means the social media giant is incredibly reliant on collecting user data in order to make money. However, when other parties do the same, Facebook reacts quickly and ruthlessly. That was the case this week when the company filed a lawsuit in Portugal against two app developers who created Google Chrome browser extensions that scraped user data from Facebook sites.

“When people installed these extensions on their browsers, they were installing concealed code designed to scrape their information from the Facebook website, but also information from the users’ browsers unrelated to Facebook — all without their knowledge,” Facebook’s Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation Jessica Romero said. “If the user visited the Facebook website, the browser extensions were programmed to scrape their name, user ID, gender, relationship status, age group and other information related to their account.”

Of course, the irony is that Facebook also collects all of that information. And while it’s wrong that these app developers scooped up user data without permission, Facebook has crossed that line a time or two itself. In fact, the company is currently fighting a proposed privacy change to Apple’s app store that would require apps to obtain user consent before tracking them. So as usual, Facebook’s public messaging is a bit confusing — to say the least.

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