"Companies such as Amazon, Meta and X Corp. employed vast consumer surveillance strategies to monetize user data without providing adequate privacy controls, including for children, according to findings released Thursday by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The consumer-protection agency -- which in December 2020 issued orders to nine companies that own the biggest social-media and video-streaming platforms in the world, including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, Snap, Discord, WhatsApp and Reddit -- found that many of the companies collected data indefinitely and wouldn't delete all user data upon request. Twitter is now known as X.
"The report lays out how social-media and video streaming companies harvest an enormous amount of Americans' personal data and monetize it to the tune of billions of dollars a year," said FTC Chair Lina Khan.
The findings come as lawmakers around the country continue efforts to shield children from specific types of content on social-media platforms, which have come under fire for their addictive nature and contributions to mental illness in young users. The report recommended that Congress pass legislation to limit surveillance, address protections and grant data rights for consumers.
The FTC found that the companies aggressively collected the data of users and nonusers alike and aggressively monetized it without sufficient oversight. The companies employed privacy-invasive tracking technologies to facilitate targeted advertising, and lacked adequate protections for children and teens on their sites, according to the report.
Many of the companies say there are no children on their platform because their services didn't allow children to create accounts or weren't directed at children, the report said. The FTC said it was an apparent attempt to avoid liability under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
"While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people's privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms," the FTC said.
The FTC added that companies should limit data collection and sharing with third parties and affiliates, while providing greater privacy protections for children and teens.
Amazon, Meta and X Corp. weren't immediately available for comment.
Officials around the country are pushing for restrictions on social-media platforms. Earlier this year, officials in New York pushed to prohibit social-media companies from serving content to minors in the state using algorithms unless apps such as Instagram and TikTok obtain parental consent.
TikTok is challenging legislation that requires its parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, to sever ties with China to keep operating in the U.S. The U.S. government maintains that China's ability to mine data on the app poses a national security threat." [1]
1. U.S. News: FTC Says Tech Firms Fall Short On Privacy Controls. Don Nico Forbes. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 20 Sep 2024: A.3.
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