FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/09/ftc-staff-report-finds-large-social-media-video-streaming-companies-have-engaged-vast-surveillance

by nabla9 • 2 years ago

522 324 2 years ago

ftc.gov

GeekyBear• 2 years ago

This portion is particularly problematic:

many companies engaged in broad data sharing that raises serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the companies’ data handling controls and oversight.

mrmetanoia2• 2 years ago

It would be wonderful if the staff report recommendations were taken seriously by our legislators. I think I'll send a copy of this to my reps and say hi.

ryanisnan2• 2 years ago

I love the cognitive dissonance on display within the federal government.

One arm: "everyone is a criminal; spy on everyone"

Other arm: "hey you shouldn't really harvest all of that data"

bitwize• 2 years ago

And it's not just here.

The EU: Unlike the barbarians across the pond, we actually protect people's privacy rights.

Also the EU: ChAt CoNtRoL

ryanisnan2• 2 years ago

The problem seems deeply fundamental to what it means to be a human.

On one hand, there's a lack of clear leadership, unifying the societal approach, on top of inherently different value systems held by those individuals.

It seems like increasingly, it's up to technologists, like ones who author our anti-surveillance tools, to create a free way forward.

whimsicalism3• 2 years ago

this view presupposes the state as “just another actor” as opposed to a privileged one that can take actions that private actors can’t

immibis3• 2 years ago

The EU has multiple parts. One part keeps asking for chat control, and another part keeps saying no.

jlarocco3• 2 years ago

The cognitive dissonance is in the voters and users.

Even right here on HN, where most people understand the issue, you'll see conversations and arguments in favor of letting companies vacuum up as much data and user info as they want (without consent or opt-in), while also saying it should be illegal for the government to collect the same data without a warrant.

In practice, the corporations and government have found the best of both worlds: https://www.wired.com/story/fbi-purchase-location-data-wray-... Profit for the corporation, legal user data for the government.

spacemadness• 2 years ago

HN is filled with folks that wrote the code in question, or want to create similar products. And they hate to have it pointed out that these tools may cause harm so they thrash around and make excuses and point fingers. A tale as old as this site.

itronitron2• 2 years ago

And in Europe, everyone and their dog uses WhatsApp

BeetleB• 2 years ago

Anti-disclaimer: I'm not one of those folks.

However, that's not at all a cognitive dissonance. Fundamentally, there's a difference between governments and private companies, and it is fairly basic to have different rules for them. The government cannot impinge on free speech, but almost all companies do. The government cannot restrict religion, but to some extent, companies can. Etc.

Of course, in this case, it's understandable to argue that neither side should have that much data without consent. But it's also totally understandable to allow only the private company to do so.

doctorpangloss8• 2 years ago

There isn’t a single intellectually honest harm associated with the majority of app telemetry and for almost all ad data collection. Like go ahead and name one.

Once you say some vague demographic and bodily autonomy stuff: you know, if you’re going to invoke “voters,” I’ve got bad news for you. Some kinds of hate are popular. So you can’t pick and choose what popular stuff is good or what popular stuff is bad. It has to be by some objective criteria.

Anyway, I disagree with your assessment of the popular position anyway. I don’t think there is really that much cognitive dissonance among voters at all. People are sort of right to not care. The FTC’s position is really unpopular, when framed in the intellectually honest way as it is in the EU, “here is the price of the web service if you opt out of ads and targeting.”

You also have to decide if ad prices should go up or down, and think deeply: do you want a world where ad inventory is expensive? It is an escape valve for very powerful networks. Your favorite political causes like reducing fossil fuel use and bodily autonomy benefit from paid traffic all the same as selling junk. The young beloved members of Congress innovate in paid Meta campaign traffic. And maybe you run a startup or work for one, and you want to compete against the vast portfolio of products the network owners now sell. There’s a little bit of a chance with paid traffic but none if you expect to play by organic content creation rules: it’s the same thing, but you are transferring money via meaningless labor of making viral content instead of focusing on your cause or business. And anyway, TikTok could always choose to not show your video for any reason.

The intellectual framework against ad telemetry is really, really weak. The FTC saying it doesn’t change that.

neuralRiot• 2 years ago

The cognitive dissonance is in the voters and users.

People really need to learn to say “NO” even if that means an inconvenience “Your personal information might be shared with our business partners for metrics and a customer tailored experience” no thanks, “what is your phone number? so I can give you 10% discount” no thanks, “cash or credit?” Cash, thanks, “login with google/ apple/ blood sample” no thanks

whimsicalism3• 2 years ago

It seems entirely reasonable/consistent that we would allow some capabilities among publicly sanctioned, democratically legitimate actors while prohibiting private actors from doing the same.

In fact, many such things fall into that category.

daedrdev• 2 years ago

I would be worried if the state was conscious of what it itself was doing as a whole

bee_rider• 2 years ago

It isn’t cognitive dissonance, the state does lots of things we’re not supposed to do. Like we’re not supposed to kill people, but they have whole departments built around the task.

Should the state do surveillance? Maybe some? Probably less? But the hypocrisy isn’t the problem, the overreach is.

kiba• 2 years ago

There are different organizations with different opinions. The government isn't a monolithic entity.

cvnahfn• 2 years ago

The FTC is under the president's authority. This is election pandering, same as Zuckerberg's backpedaling on government censorship.

This is for getting votes from the undecided.

Everything will be back to normal (surveillance, data collection and censorship) after the election.

singleshot_4• 2 years ago

Begs the question of agency authority which is manifestly not resolved. You will find that the elections’ results will effect the eventual resolution of the question of the unitary executive quite dramatically.

munk-a• 2 years ago

I don't know if you've been watching but the FTC has actually been extremely proactive during this cycle. Lina Khan is an excellent steward and has pushed for a lot of policy improvements that have been sorely needed - including the ban (currently suspended by a few judges) on non-competes.

It is disingenuous to accuse the FTC of election pandering when they've been doing stuff like this for the past four years consistently.

layer84• 2 years ago

The FTC is bipartisan, no more than three of the five commissioners can belong to the same party. The present report was unanimously voted by all five.

layer84• 2 years ago

Since the federal government isn’t a single mind (nor a hive mind), a cognitive dissonance can only be meaningfully located on the observer’s side.

vundercind• 2 years ago

Behind the ball by 15 years to start taking this seriously and beginning to think about pushing back, but better late than never.

Next please reign in the CRAs.

devonbleak• 2 years ago

It makes me irrationally angry that I suddenly started getting spam emails from Experian. Like motherfucker I never consented for you to have my data, then you leak it all, now you're sending me unsolicited junk email? It's just such bullshit that I'm literally forced to have a relationship with these companies to freeze my credit or else I'm at the mercy of whoever they decide to release my information to without my authorization.

twoodfin3• 2 years ago

My pet solution has been to make the credit reporters liable for transmitting false information to the CRAs.

Chase tells Experian I opened a new line of credit with them, but it later is demonstrated that it was a scammer with my SSN? Congratulations, $5,000 fine.

Of course this all gets priced in to the cost and availability of consumer credit. Good! Now the lenders have an incentive to drive those costs down (cheaper, better identity verification) to compete.

nicholasjarnold• 2 years ago

Yep. It sucks. Zero consequences of any import for those companies as far as I'm aware too. Tiny fines end up being "cost of doing business". Then they get to externalize their failures onto us by using terms like "Identity Theft", which indicates something was stolen from ME and is now MY problem.

In actuality some not-well-maintained systems owned by <corp> were hacked or exposed or someone perpetrated fraud on a financial institution and happened to use information that identifies me. It's really backwards.

PSA: If you haven't already, go freeze your credit at Experian, TransUnion, Equifax and Innovis. It will make the perpetration of this type of fraud much more difficult for adversaries.

rkagerer• 2 years ago

That's not an irrational reaction.

conradev• 2 years ago

For a while they were sending emails about my account that I was actually unable to unsubscribe from[1]. I knew it was illegal at the time, and when I finally noticed an unsubscribe button it was because the FTC finally intervened[2].

https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/udy8rz/exper...

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/08/...

itronitron2• 2 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E

flycaliguy• 2 years ago

I think Snowden was bang on when in 2013 he warned us of a last chance to fight for some basic digital privacy rights. I think there was a cultural window there which has now closed.

orthecreedence5• 2 years ago

Snowden pointed and everyone looked at his finger. It was a huge shame, but a cultural sign that the US is descending into a surveillance hell hole and people are ok with that. As someone who was (and still is) vehemently against PRISM and NSLs and all that, it was hard to come to terms with. I'm going to keep building things that circumvent the "empire" and hope people start caring eventually.

newsclues• 2 years ago

The long term consequences of 9/11.

nabla9• 2 years ago

Facebook Employees Explain Struggling To Care About Company's Unethical Practices When Gig So Cushy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DiBc1vkTig

xyst• 2 years ago

an onion parody/satire video, lol

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Related earlier this week:

Instagram Teen Accounts

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41572041

mgraczyk8• 2 years ago

"these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expose them to a host of harms, from identify theft to stalking."

Is there any evidence that any of these things have ever happened as a result of this sort of data collection? I'm not talking about data posted to social media, I'm talking about the specific data collection described in this FTC press release.

mu53• 2 years ago

I have been stalked and harassed by an Apple employee using data they were able to glean from their access at Apple.

The impossible part is proving the abuse. All of these companies keep their database, access controls, and everything they possible can about these data lakes secret. The simple fact of the matter is that you will never have any evidence someone looked you up in a database.

It is really easy to walk the line, but be obvious enough to intimidate.

mgraczyk8• 2 years ago

Apple wasn't listed and (outside the app store) doesn't collect the data described in the press release.

orthecreedence5• 2 years ago

Your comment is really coming across as "well, nothing bad has happened yet so who cares?" If that's not the case, please let me know how you meant it. If it is the case, surely you can imagine a world in which dragnet surveillance of people who have an expectation of privacy can be abused by corporations, institutions, or private individuals. It really doesn't take a lot of imagination to picture this world.

mgraczyk8• 2 years ago

It's been ubiquitous for around 20 years now (Google started doing mass surveillance for display ads in the early 2000s) and nothing bad has happened, so yes that's my point.

If nothing bad happens for decades, and that is inconsistent with your model of danger, then the model is probably wrong

drawkward6• 2 years ago

Wait for the AI tools Larry Ellison wants to give to law enforcement to retroactively connect/hallucinate the dots.

dogman144• 2 years ago

Not only is there evidence of harms, there are is a whole industry focused on fixing the problem for those wealthy enough or incentivized enough to care.

Do a bit of googling, but ADINT and RTB tracking will get you there for search terms.

Or, continue being confidently dismissive of something serious people are taking very seriously. I am sorry if this FTC report targeted the source of your RSUs or otherwise motivated set of incentives, but there’s no free lunch. The consequences are finally landing of your viewpoint, done collectively, over the last decade.

mgraczyk8• 2 years ago

targeted the source of your RSUs or otherwise motivated

I don't currently have any financial interest in any of these companies

but ADINT and RTB tracking will get you there for search terms.

These are good things, do you have any examples of harm that has been caused by ADINT or RTB? Prosecuting criminals doesn't count for me

srndsnd2• 2 years ago

To me, what's missing from that set of recommendations is some method to increase the liability of companies who mishandle user data.

It is insane to me that I can be notified via physical mail of months old data breaches, some of which contained my Social Security number, and that my only recourse is to set credit freezes from multiple credit bureaus.

alsetmusic• 2 years ago

Regulation is key, but I don’t see it as likely when our society is poisoned by culture war bs. Once we put that behind us (currently unlikely), we can pass sane laws reigning in huge corporations.

zeroonetwothree• 2 years ago

If you aren’t directly harmed yet what liability would they have? I imagine if your identity is stolen and it can be tied to a breach then they would already be liable.

drawkward6• 2 years ago

Surveillance apologist.

kibwen• 2 years ago

The fact that my data can be stolen in the first place is already outrageous, because I neither consented to allowing these companies to have my data, nor benefit from them having my data.

It's like if you go to an AirBNB and the owner sneaks in at night and takes photos of you sleeping naked and keeps those photos in a folder on his bookshelf. Would you be okay with that? If you're not directly harmed, what liability would they have?

Personal data should be radioactive. Any company retaining it better have a damn good reason, and if not then their company should be burned to the ground and the owners clapped in irons. And before anyone asks, "personalized advertisements" is not a good reason.

drawkward6• 2 years ago

Go ahead, post your phone number here. It's not directly harmful.

idle_zealot2• 2 years ago

That's the whole problem with "liability", isn't it? If the harms you do are diffuse enough then nobody can sue you!

bunderbunder2• 2 years ago

This is exactly why thinking of it in terms of individual cases of actual harm, as Americans have been conditioned to do by default, is precisely the wrong way to think about it. We're all familiar with the phrase "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", right?

It's better to to think of it in terms of prevention. This fits into a category of things where we know they create a disproportionate risk of harm, and we therefore decide that the behavior just shouldn't be allowed in the first place. This is why there are building codes that don't allow certain ways of doing the plumbing that tend to lead to increased risk of raw sewage flowing into living spaces. The point isn't to punish people for getting poop water all over someone's nice clean carpet; the point is to keep the poop water from soaking the carpet in the first place.

halJordan• 2 years ago

This is the traditional way of thinking, and a good question, but it is not the only way.

An able bodied person can fully make complaints against any business that fails their Americans with Disabilities Act obligation. In fact these complaints by able bodied well-doers is the de facto enforcement mechanism even though these people can never suffer damage from that failure.

The answer is simply to legislate the liability into existence.

squeaky-clean• 2 years ago

The same way you can get ticketed for speeding in your car despite not actually hitting anyone or anything.

2OEH8eoCRo02• 2 years ago

I get a feeling that liability is the missing piece in a lot of these issues. Section 230? Liability. Protection of personal data? Liability. Minors viewing porn? Liability.

Lack of liability is screwing up the incentive structure.

brookst3• 2 years ago

I think I agree, but people will have very different views on where liability should fall, and whether there is a malicious / negligent / no-fault model?

Section 230? Is it the platform or the originating user that's liable?

Protection of personal data? Is there a standard of care beyond which liability lapses (e.g. a nation state supply chain attack exfiltrates encrypted data and keys are broken due to novel quantum attack)?

Minors viewing porn? Is it the parents, the ISP, the distributor, or the creator that's liable?

I'm not here to argue specific answers, just saying that everyone will agree liability would fix this, and few will agree on who should be liable for what.

arminiusreturns10• 2 years ago

I agree. Let me tell you about what just happened to me. After a very public burnout and spiral, a friend rescued me and I took a part time gig helping a credit card processing company. About 2 months ago, the owner needed something done while I was out, and got their uber driver to send an email. They emailed the entire customer database, including bank accounts, socials, names, addresses, finance data, to a single customer. When I found out, (was kept hidden from me for 11 days) I said "This is a big deal, here are all the remediations and besides PCI we have 45 days by law to notify affected customers." The owner said "we aren't going to do that", and thus I had to turn in my resignation and am now unemployed again.

So me trying to do the right thing, am now scrambling for work, while the offender pretends nothing happened while potentially violating the entire customer base, and will likely suffer no penalty unless I report it to PCI, which I would get no reward for.

Why is it everywhere I go management is always doing shady stuff. I just want to do linuxy/datacentery things for someone who's honest... /cry

My mega side project isn't close enough to do a premature launch yet. Despite my entire plan being to forgo VC/investors, I'm now considering compromising.

mikeodds• 2 years ago

As in.. his actual Uber driver? He just handed his laptop over?

TinyRick2• 2 years ago

Why would you resign? You could have reported it yourself and then you would have whistleblower protections - if the company retaliated against you (e.g. fired you), you then would have had a strong lawsuit.

ValentinA23• 2 years ago

The DOJ has just launched a corporate whistleblower program, you should look into it maybe it covers your case:

https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-division-corporate...

As described in more detail in the program guidance, the information must relate to one of the following areas: (1) certain crimes involving financial institutions, from traditional banks to cryptocurrency businesses; (2) foreign corruption involving misconduct by companies; (3) domestic corruption involving misconduct by companies; or (4) health care fraud schemes involving private insurance plans.
If the information a whistleblower submits results in a successful prosecution that includes criminal or civil forfeiture, the whistleblower may be eligible to receive an award of a percentage of the forfeited assets, depending on considerations set out in the program guidance. If you have information to report, please fill out the intake form below and submit your information via CorporateWhistleblower@usdoj.gov. Submissions are confidential to the fullest extent of the law.

aftbit3• 2 years ago

Why is it everywhere I go management is always doing shady stuff.

Well here's a cynical take on this - management is playing the business game at a higher level than you. "Shady stuff" is the natural outcome of profit motivation. Our society is fundamentally corrupt. It is designed to use the power of coercive force to protect the rights and possessions of the rich against the threat of violence by the poor. The only way to engage with it AND keep your hands clean is to be in a position that lets you blind yourself to the problem. At the end of the day, we are all still complicit in enabling slave labor and are beneficiaries of policies that harm the poor and our environment in order to enrich our lives.

unless I report it to PCI, which I would get no reward for.

You may be looking at that backwards. Unless you report it to PCI, you are still complicit in the mishandling of the breach, even though you resigned. You might have been better off reporting it over the owner's objections, then claiming whistleblower protections if they tried to terminate you.

This is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, etc.

bilekas2• 2 years ago

To me, what's missing from that set of recommendations is some method to increase the liability of companies who mishandle user data.

As nice as this is on paper, it will never happen, lobbyist exists. Not to be tinfoil hat but why would any lawmaker slap the hand that feeds them.

Until there is an independent governing body which is permitted to regulate over the tech industry as a whole it wont happen. Consider the FDA, they decide which drugs and ingredients are allowed and that's all fine. There could be a regulating body which could determine the risk to people's mental health for example from 'features' of tech companies etc. But getting that body created will require a tragedy. Like why the FDA was created in the first place. [1]

That's just my 2cents.

1 : https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history/milestones-us-food....

Aerroon3• 2 years ago

There could be a regulating body which could determine the risk to people's mental health for example from 'features' of tech companies etc.

I think ideas like this is why it's not going to happen.

Our understanding of mental health is garbage. Psychiatry used to be full of quackery and very well still might be. Treatment for something like depression boils down to "let's try drug in a random order until one works". It's a field where a coin-flip rivals the accuracy of studies. Therefore any regulating body on that will just be political. It will be all about the regulators "doing something" because somebody wrote enough articles (propaganda).

Problems like this are why people aren't interested in supporting such endeavors.

pwillia75• 2 years ago

Through civil disobedience is the only way stuff like this happens in America. You're right about the incentives to those in power, but how do you think we got emancipation2, women's suffrage, organized labor rights, prohibition and the end to prohibition?

samfundev• 2 years ago

While I also worry about lobbying, we'll have to lobby harder.

layer84• 2 years ago

I’m completely sympathetic to making companies more liable for data security. However, until data breaches regularly lead to severe outcomes for subjects whose personal data was leaked, and those outcomes can be causally linked to the breaches in an indisputable manner, it seems unlikely for such legislation to be passed.

Onavo• 2 years ago

Then instead of regulating the companies, make SSN easily revokable and unique per service. I don't understand why Americans are so oppposed to a national ID despite the fact that every KYC service use SSNs and driver licenses.

wepple2• 2 years ago

I forgot where I saw this, but the US govt recently announced that they see mass PII theft as a legitimate national security issue.

It’s not just that you or I will be inconvenienced with a bit more fraud or email spam, but rather that large nation state adversaries having huge volumes of data on the whole population can be a significant strategic advantage

And so far we typically see email+password+ssn be the worst data leaked; I expect attackers will put in more effort to get better data where possible. Images, messages, gps locations, etc

mapt2• 2 years ago

"What fraction of the FBI and CIA do the Communists have blackmail material on?"

EasyMark2• 2 years ago

They’d need a lot less security if they stopped spying on us and saving all of our most critical ID data, period.

deegles• 2 years ago

Nearly everyone's data has been leaked already. Any strong protections would only protect people who haven't been born yet imo.

trinsic22• 2 years ago

Sounds like a bunch of crap the industry is already trying to sell the public and no its not working and yes we can do with out it.

bhhaskin• 2 years ago

If your identity gets stolen, you should be able to sue all the companies that had a leak.

nimbius• 2 years ago

I think the only reason were seeing this revelation from a federal agency after 20 years is to boost the governments case against tiktok.

runjake2• 2 years ago

YMMV, but it took me 15 minutes start to finish to freeze my credit with the 3 bureaus using the following instructions.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-freeze-cre...

saagarjha• 2 years ago

Ok, but this is something that shouldn't be my problem. And it's not just that; I have to go unfreeze it if someone needs to run a credit check.

wwmiller3• 2 years ago

Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to mitigate identity theft. Someone leveraging the recent National Public Data breach opened a checking and savings account using my identity (no credit checks are performed in doing so) then committed wire fraud using accounts.

tombrossman2• 2 years ago

YMMV indeed.

Since moving overseas 15 years ago, I tried numerous times and it simply is not possible. All the forms require a U.S. mailing address to register. Same for online access to your Social Security account.

There are an estimated 10 million Americans living overseas. Taken together, we are the equivalent of the 11th largest state. All of us completely blind to what is happening with our credit record and Social Security account.

At this point I think the only way this gets fixed is massive fraud/exploitation by organized crime, so these organizations finally address the problem.

closeparen2• 2 years ago

Shared secrets are criminally negligent security architecture in 2024. We can authenticate identity and authorize payment without giving the relying party a token to leak or abuse. The energy behind this problem is good, but "everyone try harder to protect the shared secrets entrusted to you" would be a tragic waste of it.

DoctorOetker• 2 years ago

[...] would be a tragic waste of it.

The first time would have been a tragedy, from then on it has been farce after farce.

Imagine a world where companies would have to prove the necessity of storing specific factoids. It would only take 1 security researcher to prove it being unnecessary, invalidating that class of "legitimate interests".

Today this value judgement happens in human brains, like the (correct) judgement in your comment. If we want to scale it objectively we would have to switch to formal verification. A whole industry of compliance checking could come to exist where a company wants to get its operations screened for compliance issues, so as not to suffer criminal negligence penalties.

pkphilip• 2 years ago

But reveal any "classified" information about the govt and you will end up in jail. The severe asymmetry between what a citizen can do and what the govt gives itself the right to do is crazy.

m463• 2 years ago

that, and removing the commercial trackers from this ftc.gov webpage...

googletagmanager.com googleapis.com fontawesome.com addtoany.com

sigh

shawn-butler• 2 years ago

the full report[0] is a good read don't just read the summary..

>> But these findings should not be viewed in isolation. They stem from a business model that varies little across these nine firms – harvesting data for targeted advertising, algorithm design, and sales to third parties. With few meaningful guardrails, companies are incentivized to develop ever-more invasive methods of collection. >>

[0] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Social-Media-6b...

JackOfCrows• 2 years ago

Shocked, gambling, establishment, etc.

MengerSponge• 2 years ago

2016 Schneier on Security "Data is a Toxic Asset": https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_tox...

kart233• 2 years ago

Profound Threats to Users Can Occur When Targeting Occurs Based on Sensitive Categories
Targeted ads based on knowledge about protected categories can be especially distressing. One example is when someone has not disclosed their sexual orientation publicly, but an ad assumes their sexual orientation. Another example is when a retailer identifies someone as pregnant and targets ads for baby products before others, including family, even know about the pregnancy. These types of assumptions and inferences upon which targeted advertising is based can in some instances result in emotional distress, lead to individuals being misidentified or misclassified, and cause other harms.

If this is one of the biggest harms the FTC can come up with, then honestly as a consumer I don't really care. Having free youtube is worth getting a few mistargeted ads, or I CAN JUST TURN TARGETED ADS OFF. Advertising isn't someone harassing you, its an ad that I can close or just report as not being accurate. I'd really be interested to hear from someone who thinks getting a mistargeted ad is in top 10 most stressful things in their life.

What I would really be interested in is the raw responses from the companies, not this report.

blurbleblurble• 2 years ago

Use your imagination?

carb• 2 years ago

I CAN JUST TURN TARGETED ADS OFF

The only reason you have the option to do this is because of groups pushing back against advertising companies. Ad companies have no incentive to offer the option to disable targeting.

If you like having this option available, then you should like this FTC report and the position they are taking.

kart233• 2 years ago

If you like having this option available, then you should like this FTC report and the position they are taking.

I can like other positions and actions the FTC has done, like requiring the ability to turn off targeted ads, and not like others, like this one. This is among the biggest problems in politics right now. Supporting a political party doesn't mean you need to 100% back all their opinions and policies, thats how change is effected in successful democratic systems.

russdpale• 2 years ago

instead of stupid recommendations, which are laughable, the government should actually enforce them.

layer84• 2 years ago

“The government” isn’t a singular entity, and the FTC is an independent agency.

notinmykernel2• 2 years ago

See also: "How advertisers became NSA's best friend"[1].

[1]https://www.theverge.com/2013/12/12/5204196/how-advertisers-...

dredmorbius3• 2 years ago

NB: 2013 (as is suggested by the URL).

notinmykernel2• 2 years ago

Do you think this effort was somehow scaled back?

yieldcrv• 2 years ago

Wait till the FTC discovers Full Story

cynan123• 2 years ago

Lina Khan has been on a tear. She actually seems to care about online human rights.

montag• 2 years ago

I think this effort is positive, but a bit misdirected. Think data breach liability. Facebook and YouTube are willing and capable defenders of sensitive customer data. Watch the AshleyMadison documentary. Arrogant disregard for customer privacy and almost no culpability. These smaller, irresponsible players are where consumers are most vulnerable.

gopkarthik• 2 years ago

Agreed. Mid-sized/smaller players are the places which have very poor data & security practices. Especially when they require PII as part of their operations.

Meta, Google are much better stewards of their users data. One misconception I see is claiming these companies sell user data. I'd instead say that they sell user attention.

xhevahir• 2 years ago

I will be surprised if she's still there six months from now. Trump will remove her if he becomes president; whereas if Harris wins, and the GOP take the Senate--a pretty likely scenario--I fear Harris won't hesitate to use Khan as a bargaining chip to gain confirmation of her appointments.

r721• 2 years ago

See also on this topic:

Two billionaire Harris donors hope she will fire FTC Chair Lina Khan

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/two-billionaire-harris-dono...

Kamala Harris’ Donors Privately Urge Firing of FTC’s Khan, SEC’s Gensler

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-06/kamala-ha...

Eumenes• 2 years ago

She is friends with JD Vance apparently

seydor• 2 years ago

A little hypocritical when it comes from various government organizations all over the western world. Surveillance companies are essential for police to be able to easily gather data when needed fast. It is a happy accident that surveillance is so lucrative for advertising and also so effective for policing.

janalsncm4• 2 years ago

Different parts of government might disagree on the best course of action but I wouldn’t call that disagreement hypocrisy per se.

It’s also not true that it’s an irresolvable conflict. Yes the cops can and do buy your phone location data, but even if we said that was fine and should continue, that doesn’t also mean that any schmuck should be able to buy real-time Supreme Court justice location data from a broker.

doctorpangloss8• 2 years ago

Simple questions:

Should ad prices be lower or higher?

Should YouTube be free for everyone, or should it cost money?

beezlebroxxxxxx• 2 years ago

Having ads does not require mass surveillance --- that's really just something that social media companies have normalized because that's the particular business model and practices they have adopted and which makes them the most amount of money possible.

goosejuice2• 2 years ago

Well put. Targeting and more specifically retargeting is the problem.

Most companies can't afford to not do this when their competitors are. Hence the need for regulation.

janalsncm4• 2 years ago

Those are useful questions but I don’t think they’re the only ones that matter. Here’s another one for consideration:

What is the minimum level of privacy that a person should be entitled to, no matter their economic status?

If we just let the free market decide these questions for us, the results won’t be great. There are a lot of things which shouldn’t be for sale.

doctorpangloss8• 2 years ago

What is the minimum level of privacy that a person should be entitled to, no matter their economic status?

This is an interesting question: maybe the truth is, very little.

I don't think that user-identified app telemetry is below that minimum level of privacy. Knowing what I know about ad tracking in Facebook before Apple removed app identifiers, I don't think any of that was below the minimum level.

This is a complex question for sort of historical reasons, like how privacy is meant to be a limit on government power as opposed to something like, what would be the impact if this piece of data were more widely known about me? We're talking about the latter but I think people feel very strongly about the former.

Anyway, I answered your questions. It's interesting that no one really wants to engage with the basic premise, do you want these services to be free or no? Is it easy to conceive that people never choose the paid version of the service? What proof do you need that normal people (1) understand the distinction between privacy as a barrier to government enforcement versus privacy as a notion of sensitive personal data (2) will almost always view themselves as safe from the government, probably rightly so, so they will almost always choose the free+ads version of any service, and just like they have been coming out ahead for the last 30 years, they are likely to keep coming out ahead, in this country?

DaleNeumann• 2 years ago

"According to one estimate, some Teens may see as many as 1,260 ads per day.200 Children and Teens may be lured through these ads into making purchases or handing over personal information and other data via dark patterns"

There is a long trail of blood behind google and facebook, amazon... Etc...

93po• 2 years ago

Even with ad blockers, we still see tons of ads. Corporate news like CNN constantly has front page stories that are just paid promotion for some product or service wrapped in a thin veil of psuedo journalism. Product placement is everywhere too. Tons of reddit front page content is bot-upvoted content that is actually just a marketing campaign disguised as some TIL or meme or sappy story.

FMecha• 2 years ago

That does not even account for offline ads, such as billboards.

walrushunter2• 2 years ago

Blood??? Some kid spending their allowance on a shitty phone game does not make them bleed.

bilekas2• 2 years ago

More details : https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/Social-Media-6b...

ianopolous2• 2 years ago

We really need e2ee social media that's designed to protect, not addict people.

janalsncm4• 2 years ago

“E2ee social media” isn’t a coherent concept. E2ee has to do with how information is transferred not what is transferred.

ianopolous2• 2 years ago

Sure it is: https://peergos.org/posts/decentralized-social-media

It is social media where only the end users' devices can decrypt the posts and comments. Then surveillance is not possible. Targeted ads are not possible.

herf• 2 years ago

Please make it so my kids can watch a YouTube video required by school without watching 20 YouTube shorts after. That's all I want.

goosejuice2• 2 years ago

Download the video?

dredmorbius3• 2 years ago

<https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpv_(media_player)>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player>

hackerdood• 2 years ago

Assuming it’s on a computer (big assumption for kids) you can install this[0] extension and customize it to do things like remove shorts from appearing, disable autoplay, hide recommended videos, etc. it’s a good way to not let YouTube pull your focus away from you.

[0] https://unhook.app/

CatWChainsaw• 2 years ago

Surveillance is cancerous. It keeps on growing, feeding on justification for every data point "just because", and then eventually it kills you.

blondelegs2• 2 years ago

Yes thank you for listening BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO

EasyMark2• 2 years ago

Let’s add automaker to the list as well with all the cameras and microphones spying in auto cabins.

SamuelAdams• 2 years ago

The report found that the companies collected and could indefinitely retain troves of data, including information from data brokers, and about both users and non-users of their platforms.

As a non-user of many social media platforms, is there anything I can do to prevent companies from collecting data about me? It feels wrong that companies you do not sign up for are still finding and processing data about you.

disambiguation• 2 years ago

Ever stop and think it's funny that Meta, Google, etc. are worth billions because they figured out how to legally fill a database with information about you? In any other time in history some might call it spying, but well they figured out how to do it legally, and it's worth billions. Meanwhile from a technical standpoint, remotely logging your data is a trivial thing, with consent of course. It's like, we made this imaginary wall (law) and spent billions building a road around that wall, and thats equivalent to econmic prosperity. Similar idea with streaming services versus file sharing.

weixiyen• 2 years ago

they are valuable b/c they built something billions of people use. I suspect the revenue loss from every one of these FTC recommendations being implemented would not have a material impact on either of the businesses you mentioned

cscurmudgeon• 2 years ago

Spying is done without consent.

Why do people keep saying social media is just a database?

Llamamoe• 2 years ago

The consent you give to web services isn't much better than if an electrician said "hey, can you tap this button to give me consent to work on your house?" and then installed undetectable hidden microphones inside every surface in your apartment.

All of the UX of online consent forms exists to misinform, trick, and get users used to agreeing to sell their digital soul.

WickyNilliams• 2 years ago

Facebook will create shadow profiles of you even if you've never signed up, never created a profile. They'll take your number from other people's contacts via WhatsApp. They'll do facial scans of you on photos other people upload.

Even if you've never visited their site.

Where's the consent there?

pwillia75• 2 years ago

Wait --- the emperor isn't wearing any clothes?!?!?

MetaWhirledPeas• 2 years ago

I wouldn't say that. If it meets our needs/wants and we are willing to pay for it, that represents value, no matter how silly it sounds. People pay money for plenty of nonsense: cosmetics, junk food, DLC. The fact that it's artificially derived (laws begetting paid workarounds) doesn't change the value proposition. For data gluttons the investment in data acquisition pays off. There are plenty of people paying money to work around laws, especially tax laws. Tax decisions have a scale from wisdom (an individual making prudent financial decisions) to deviance (a company playing shell games with businesses and bank accounts) but the line can be blurry.

I do think the situation is dystopian though. Sharing data without explicit case-by-case consent should be disallowed.

negativeonehalf2• 2 years ago

Targeted advertising is a good thing. It lets people who make stuff more efficiently connect with people who want that stuff.

The FTC chair is complaining that companies "monetize that data to the tune of billions of dollars a year," but all this means is that this service is tremendously valuable.

The Internet's targeted advertising system is a major achievement of modern information technology and data science, and we dismantle it at our peril.

ickelbawd• 2 years ago

Really? Peril? We’ll be in perilous danger if we don’t maintain targeted, invasive ad tracking? Get a grip.

negativeonehalf2• 2 years ago

I am saying that we should not destroy a major source of prosperity. Targeted advertising is far more effective than untargeted because it lets you show ads to people who might have any interest in what you're selling.

darby_nine• 2 years ago

This is truly interesting from a dialectical perspective. The current narrative is that data is simultaneously infinitely valuable and presents zero liability. This contradiction can't hold forever (though it can hold longer than any of us are alive, of course)

I suspect it will break in the direction of the narrative that "data wasn't that valuable anyway", regardless of how disingenuous this sentiment is. Nothing else preserves the economic machine while simultaneously dismissing the concerns of consumers. Perhaps we'll get special protection for stuff like SSNs to make it seem like politicians are acting on the behalf of their constituents (even though a competent manager of a rational society would simply ban use of ssn as a form of identification as this is basically public information.

advael• 2 years ago

I honestly think that if half of the FTC's lawsuits under Lina Khan succeed, she'll have more meaningful positive change in the life of the average American to point to than the last six or so presidents

fred_bellows• 2 years ago

from the report: "While the Order did not explicitly request that the Companies report all the types of Personal Information collected.." Why wouldn't they ask for all the personal information that they collect? Can anyone explain this?

mont_tag• 2 years ago

Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that surveillance is going on in here!

hermannj314• 2 years ago

There are pretending to take this topic seriously because there is an election coming up. Your government is in bed with big tech, no one is coming to save you, everyone is on their own, expect no quarter.

BlueTemplar4• 2 years ago

Far from me to try to defend platforms, but I am still wondering (for years now) :

How are data deletion requests supposed to be handled in practice, when the only way to be sure is to physically destroy the hardware that data was stored on ? (Especially the case for transistor-based storage, and even more so when wear leveling is being used.)

Or is this is actually a "pinky promise" by the company to not restore the data (or else they will have to face legal consequences) ?

jarbus• 2 years ago

Lina Kahn has been the best part of the Biden administration, by far. I wish she'd run for president.

FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

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