The U.S. agency said the Federal Trade Commission has approached Facebook, Twitter, and other social media and video streaming companies, seeking information on how they use the personal information that they collect on their users.
In addition to Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc, the orders requesting data were sent to Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp, Amazon.com Inc, China’s ByteDance unit TikTok, Discord Inc, Reddit Inc, Snap Inc, and Google subsidiary YouTube LLC.
In a statement, the FTC seeks to learn how businesses collect data on customers, how they determine the ads to display, and how algorithms are used, among other information, the agency said. It also seeks information about how the activities of the businesses impact children and teenagers.
The companies have 45 days to respond to directives, which are commonly used to create policy or propose legislation.
Two Democratic commission members, Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Slaughter, and one Republican, Christine Wilson, acknowledged their impetus for the order in a joint statement.
“Never before has there been an industry capable of surveilling and monetizing so much of our personal lives,” they wrote. “Social media and video streaming companies now follow users everywhere through apps on their always-present mobile devices. This constant access allows these firms to monitor where users go, the people with whom they interact, and what they are doing. … Too much about the industry remains dangerously opaque.
Discord said it looked forward to answering the FTC’s questions. “We make no money from advertising, selling user data to advertisers, or sharing users’ personal information with others. Instead, the company generates its revenue directly from users through a paid subscription service,” a spokesperson said in an email statement to Reuters.
According to Brandon Gaille for online consumers, privacy is the number one concern. With 86 percent of users taking proactive steps to improve their safety online. Also, as governments, industries, and privacy organizations around the world have put more data privacy regulations and guidelines, it is becoming significantly important that marketers understand these rules and follow them.
To provide customers with a positive, personalized experience, today’s marketers collect as much data as they can from them online. They are however, legally bound to handle such private personal data in a respectful and equitable manner. They should also be open about using it for their marketing activities.
