Whistleblower Alleges Meta Artificially Boosted Shops Ads Performance (adweek.com) 8
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Adweek: Meta wanted advertisers to believe its ecommerce ad product, Shops ads, was outperforming the competition, per a whistleblower complaint filed in a U.K. court. The former employee alleges the social media giant artificially inflated return on ad spend (ROAS) by counting shipping fees as revenue, subsidizing bids in ad auctions, and applying undisclosed discounts. The complaint, viewed by ADWEEK, was filed with the London Central Employment Tribunal on Wednesday (August 20) by Samujjal Purkayastha, a former product manager on Meta's Shops ads team. The document claims Meta artificially inflated performance metrics to push brands toward its fledgling ecommerce ad product.
The company's motivation, the complaint says, was in part to combat Apple's 2021 privacy changes that cut the troves of iOS tracking information that had long powered Meta's ad machine. Meta's former chief financial officer (CFO), David Wehner, said the changes would cost "on the order of $10 billion" in losses during the company's Q4 2021 earnings call. User purchases on Facebook or Instagram Shops pages would provide more first-party data, however. Purkayastha, who joined Meta (then Facebook) in 2020 as a product manager on the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Applied Research team, was reassigned to the Shops Ads team in March 2022 and remained at the company until Feb. 19, 2025, when he was terminated.
He alleged that during internal reviews in early 2024, Meta data scientists found the return on ad spend (ROAS) from Shops ads had been inflated between 17% and 19%. This discrepancy stemmed from Meta counting shipping fees and taxes as part of a sale, even though that money never went to merchants, he alleged. The company's other ad products exclude those figures, in line with competitors like Google, the complaint reads. Without including the fees and taxes, Shops ads performed no better than Meta's traditional ads, Purkayastha claimed. "This was significant," the complaint reads. "In addition to the ROAS performance metric being overstated by nearly a fifth, it meant that, rather than having exceeded our primary target, the Shops Ads team had in fact missed it once the figure was reduced to take account of the artificial inflation." Purkayastha raised these concerns with senior leadership in multiple meetings between 2022 and 2024, and is now seeking interim relief through his employment tribunal filing to have his former position reinstated.
A Meta spokesperson told ADWEEK the company is "actively defending these proceedings," adding that "allegations related to the integrity of our advertising practices are without merit and we have full confidence in our performance review processes."
The company's motivation, the complaint says, was in part to combat Apple's 2021 privacy changes that cut the troves of iOS tracking information that had long powered Meta's ad machine. Meta's former chief financial officer (CFO), David Wehner, said the changes would cost "on the order of $10 billion" in losses during the company's Q4 2021 earnings call. User purchases on Facebook or Instagram Shops pages would provide more first-party data, however. Purkayastha, who joined Meta (then Facebook) in 2020 as a product manager on the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Applied Research team, was reassigned to the Shops Ads team in March 2022 and remained at the company until Feb. 19, 2025, when he was terminated.
He alleged that during internal reviews in early 2024, Meta data scientists found the return on ad spend (ROAS) from Shops ads had been inflated between 17% and 19%. This discrepancy stemmed from Meta counting shipping fees and taxes as part of a sale, even though that money never went to merchants, he alleged. The company's other ad products exclude those figures, in line with competitors like Google, the complaint reads. Without including the fees and taxes, Shops ads performed no better than Meta's traditional ads, Purkayastha claimed. "This was significant," the complaint reads. "In addition to the ROAS performance metric being overstated by nearly a fifth, it meant that, rather than having exceeded our primary target, the Shops Ads team had in fact missed it once the figure was reduced to take account of the artificial inflation." Purkayastha raised these concerns with senior leadership in multiple meetings between 2022 and 2024, and is now seeking interim relief through his employment tribunal filing to have his former position reinstated.
A Meta spokesperson told ADWEEK the company is "actively defending these proceedings," adding that "allegations related to the integrity of our advertising practices are without merit and we have full confidence in our performance review processes."
I don't see the problem (Score:2)
Amazon inflates the base price with free shipping. Collected fees are revenue, just ask Comcast.
Even Google doesn't cheat this way. (Score:1)
"The company's other ad products exclude those figures, in line with competitors like Google, the complaint reads."
"The food is awful and the portions are small" (Score:2)
I have no idea what the merits of this case are, but it always struck me as odd when somebody files a case like this against their former employer claiming the employer was unethical and unfair...and the relief they want is to be re-hired by that company.
Why would he want to go back to work there and, given that he's suing them and claiming they did something unethical, how welcoming of an environment does he expect it to be if he were to be reinstated?
Re: (Score:1)
No more invites to team lunches!
Re: (Score:1)
This makes zero sense to me.
Why would you try to strong arm your previous employer as a whistleblower just to get your old job back in a department that behaved unethically?
Maybe Purkayastha is playing the long game by hoping to be reinstated through this tribunal. Once the inevitable retaliation occurs, seeking compensation.
Re: (Score:2)
In theory:
It may not have been the entire company that was "in on it." It could have been just a few bad actors, in particular in leadership, who were perpetuating the unethical behavior.
Further, it could be those same bad actors who punished him by firing him for raising the issue.
And, lastly, he might need the money he makes from his job.
So, if he wins the case, it could mean that the specific managers responsible get fired. He gets re-instated under ethical managers who approve of what he did. And his
That's easy to believe (Score:2)