(San Francisco) A multi-year study shows that social media and internet giants are engaging in “mass surveillance” to capitalize on users’ personal data, according to the US Competition Authority (FTC).
A report released Wednesday night based on requests made to nine companies four years ago found that they collected vast amounts of data, sometimes through data brokers, and could retain the information indefinitely.
“This report highlights how social media and video companies are streaming “are harvesting massive amounts of personal data and monetizing it for billions of dollars,” FTC chief Lina Khan said in a statement, adding that she was “particularly concerned about the failure of many of these companies to protect children and teens online.”
In many of these companies, business models involving targeted advertising encourage the mass collection of user data, prioritizing profit over privacy, the report said.
While lucrative for companies, these surveillance practices can jeopardize people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms and expose them to a range of ills, from identity theft to harassment.
FTC Commissioner Lina Khan
In a statement responding to the report’s release, the head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), an industry trade organization, said he was “disappointed that the FTC has continually characterized the digital advertising industry as engaged in ‘mass commercial surveillance.'”
According to David Cohen, Internet users understand that targeted advertising allows them to take advantage of online services that would otherwise not be free or cheap.
The IAB also noted Thursday that it “strongly” supports a comprehensive national data privacy law, legislation the report calls for.
The report is based on requests sent in late 2020 to companies including Meta, YouTube (Google), Snap, Amazon (for Twitch), ByteDance (TikTok) and Twitter, now X.
Google spokesman Jose Cataneda told AFP that his company “has the strictest privacy policies in the industry.” “We never sell personal information or use sensitive information to serve ads,” he said.