Someone once said data is the new gold: That was no lie

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

They track what we read, what websites we visit, whether we are married and have children, our educational level, and income bracket, our location, our purchasing habits, our personal interests, and in some cases even our health conditions and religious faith.

They track what we do on and off their platforms, often combining their own information with enormous data sets purchased through the largely unregulated consumer data market.

Large firms are increasingly relying on hidden pixels and similar technologies embedded on other websites to track our behavior down to each click. In fact, the companies collected so much data that in response to the Commission’s questions, they often could not even identify all the data points they collected, or all the third parties they shared that data with.

The above information is a minute part of a 129-page report put together by FTC (aka Federal Trade Commission) based on responses to six orders issued in December 2020 to nine companies including some of the largest social media and video streaming services.

Technology has become a double-edged sword; it is a good servant, but can become a bad master too, here is a case in point.

The FTC has put out a new staff report, which reveals that the data collection and use practices of major social media and video streaming services show they engaged in vast surveillance of consumers most times without their knowledge. What is even worse, is that the data is being sold for billions of dollars. All this is done while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens.

FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said, “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 issued orders to numerous social media and video streaming platforms requiring specific information from them. Here is some of what was required.

• How social media and video streaming services collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information;
• How they determine which ads and other content are shown to consumers.
• Whether they apply algorithms or data analytics to personal information.
• How they measure, promote, and research user engagement.
• How their practices affect children and teens.

The Commission voted 4-1 to issue the 6(b) orders to the nine social media and video service companies. According to the report, here are some of the platforms involved: Amazon.com, Inc., which owns the gaming platform Twitch; Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms, Inc.); YouTube LLC; Twitter, Inc. (now X Corp.); Snap Inc.; ByteDance Ltd., which owns the video-sharing platform TikTok; Discord Inc.; Reddit, Inc.; and WhatsApp Inc.

The report went on to reveal that the companies’ data collection, minimization, and retention practices were “woefully inadequate.” In addition, the staff report found that some companies did not delete all user data in response to user deletion requests. This reinforces the fact that people need to be extremely cautious when using these social media apps.

The owners and operators of these apps and platforms have unrestricted access to all your videos and photos that you share with your friends and lovers too, let that sink in. This is a case for users to be aware of.

When questioned these companies asserted that there were no children on their platform, yet that was proven untrue. According to the FTC’s staff report, this was an apparent attempt to avoid liability under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule. The staff report found that the social media and video streaming services often treated teens the same as adult users, with most companies allowing teens on their platforms with no account restrictions.

Here are some of the recommendations that were concluded because of these findings by the FTC.

• Congress should pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation to limit surveillance, address baseline protections, and grant consumers data rights.
• Companies should limit data collection, implement concrete and enforceable data minimization and retention policies, limit data sharing with third parties and affiliates, delete consumer data when it is no longer needed, and adopt consumer-friendly privacy policies that are clear, simple, and easily understood.
• Companies should not collect sensitive information through privacy-invasive ad-tracking technologies.
• Companies should carefully examine their policies and practices regarding ad targeting based on sensitive categories.
• Companies should address the lack of user control over how their data is used by systems as well as the lack of transparency regarding how such systems are used and should implement more stringent testing and monitoring standards for such systems.
• Companies should not ignore the reality that there are child users on their platforms and should treat COPPA as representing the minimum requirements and provide additional safety measures for children.
• Companies should recognize teens are not adults and provide them greater privacy protections.
• Congress should pass federal privacy legislation to fill the gap in privacy protections provided by COPPA for teens over the age of 13.

Let us be honest here. Readers, do you believe that people who sell your data for billions of dollars, and governments who use this same data to know everything about you, and to keep you living under digital slavery will relinquish this practice?