A study conducted over several years shows that social media and internet giants are practicing “mass surveillance” to profit from the personal data of Internet users, according to the American Competition Authority (FTC).
A report released Wednesday night, based on requests made to nine companies four years ago, found that they collected large amounts of data, sometimes through data brokers, and could retain the information indefinitely.
“This report highlights how social media and streaming video companies (streaming“) are collecting huge amounts of personal data and trading it for billions of dollars,” FTC chief Lina Khan said in a statement, saying 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.
“Lucrative for companies, these surveillance practices can jeopardize people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms and expose them to a number of evils, from identity theft to harassment,” according to Mr.me 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 nationwide 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.
