The FTC issued a new report on the data collection and use practices of Meta, Amazon, Google, X, Snap, TikTok, Discord, and Reddit. The findings indicate that these big tech platforms engage in “vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens.”
Although the knowledge of this happening in mass is not necessarily groundbreaking news, the FTC report is likely to light fires under previous efforts of policymakers to curtail these practices.
The FTC report found that the business models of these companies incentivize the mass collection of user data for monetization, in particular through targeted advertising, which accounts for most of their revenue, and that this financial model is “in tension” with user privacy.
The risk to user privacy, and non-user privacy alike, is exacerbated by these companies acquiring information on U.S. citizens through data brokers and other means, which means folks have no way to opt out of how their data is used.
FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement:
“While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms and expose them to a host of harms, from identity theft to stalking. Several firms’ failure to adequately protect kids and teens online is especially troubling. The report’s findings are timely, particularly as state and federal policymakers consider legislation to protect people from abusive data practices.”
The FTC recommends:
- Passing comprehensive federal privacy legislation to limit surveillance and grant consumer data rights.
- Companies proactively working to limit data collection and implement concrete data retention and sharing policies.
- Stopping the collection of sensitive information through privacy-invasive ad tracking technologies.
- Big Tech addressing the lack of user control and transparency over how their data is used by systems.
- Greater privacy protection for teens and children.
- Federal privacy legislation to fill the gap in privacy protections provided by COPPA.
Another swing and a hit by Lina Khan and the FTC! I'm a huge FTC fanboy ever since she came into office.