FTC Launches Sweeping Privacy Study of Top Tech Platforms (axios.com) 16
The Federal Trade Commission will announce Monday that it's launching a new inquiry into the privacy and data collection practices of major tech firms including Amazon, TikTok owner ByteDance, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as well as its subsidiary WhatsApp, Axios reported Monday. From the report: The move comes amid broader scrutiny for the industry and appears to be a wide-reaching inquiry into everything major tech companies know about their users and what they do with that data, as well as their broader business plans. The FTC is asking for a large trove of information and documents from the above platforms, plus Discord, Reddit and Snap. The agency wants much of the usage and engagement data the platforms collect on their users, the metrics they use for measuring such things and short- and long-term business strategies, among many other areas of inquiry. In launching the study, the FTC is using its authority to do wide-ranging studies for no specific law enforcement purpose.
Serves them right... (Score:1)
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The new administration will very openly and publicly kill this investigation by the end of January, if only because if they don't, those same platforms will be against them next time around, instead of suppressing their opponents.
Re:Serves them right... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's classical crony-capitalist tit-for-tat, but not what's happening here. No doubt the recent flurry of investigations are driven in part by Trumpkin butthurt, but nobody likes these social media companies. Not even the liberal boogeyman who is calling for actual suppression of conservatism - they're disappointed because it hasn't happened. Nobody likes these companies. The next administration gains nothing by killing these investigations. They have everything to gain from making a show of duking it out. Emphasis on "making a show", because I'm not certain how serious these suits are to begin with. It's quite possibly they're purely for PR purposes, much like the recent flurry of election lawsuits.
Re:Serves them right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Both Democrats voted for this order, with a 4-1 vote (one Republican voting against). There was nothing partisan about this. Both parties have shown desire to reign in these large tech companies (or if you are more cynical, both parties at least want to appear to do so).
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The use of reign and not rein very nearly changes the meaning of the sentence to its opposite.
Reigning in something is to rule it. Reining in something is to stop it.
Goog? (Score:3)
Title (Score:3)
Is it the Federal Trade Commission or is it the Trump Administration? Sometimes I've noticed that federal agencies become the Trump Administration in headlines. It's the FTC this time, and *not* the Trump Administration?
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Is it the Federal Trade Commission or is it the Trump Administration? Sometimes I've noticed that federal agencies become the Trump Administration in headlines. It's the FTC this time, and *not* the Trump Administration?
In many cases articles will use "Trump Administration" when something is more partisan or divisive. Similar to how not every bill passed during the Obama administration was universally labelled with his name, but the ACA became Obamacare.
The vote to initiate this investigation was bi-partisan, with 2 Republican and 2 Democrat voting for it (1 Republican voted against). With it clearly not being a partisan push by the Trump administration, it wouldn't make sense to politicize it.
The sounds of inevitability (Score:2)
Every user of these social media giants needs to take a moment and consider the fact that the US government will soon have access to everything they've shared, and everything these giants have managed to collect on them.
Considering the current political climate, I think this is the big takeaway from this story, and should give every user pause.
Re: The sounds of inevitability (Score:2)
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The moment for taking pause was about a decade ago. If they didn't already have a direct tap into this stuff (forgot Snowden already?) they've got multiple avenues including the Patriot act secret courts to requisition it. And that's just when they feel like following the law.
Anyway, what FB and everyone they sell to (forgot Cambridge Analytica already?) do with the data is just as bad as what the government might do with it.
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I think the big difference here is the procedural process of access. Even with all of the methods of access that have become common, access was facilitated by reams of paper passing multiple desks, and signatures that could be validated.
They no longer need a paper-trail. There no longer needs to be any even fake oversight. This data is now de-facto property of Uncle Sam, and will be combined with every other database and provide a pretty much 100% accurate political and social profile on every American wit
What about ... (Score:2)
I do not see Microsoft, Apple, Comcast and Cell Phone Providers on the list. Do they bribe^H^H^H^H^H lobby Congress with more $ ?
They also connect lots of data on their customers. Remember all that data Congress is suppose to be "worried" about also goes through your ISP and Cell Phone provider first.
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The data goes through your ISP, and they probably keep something akin to a call log, but they don't record the actual payload data and archive it for all time. They're not even able to these days, with most traffic being SSL-encrypted. (Funnily enough, Google was instrumental in the "throw SSL on everything, whether it needs it or not" push.) And, theoretically, the ISPs are already regulated, but social media is the Wild West.
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Yeah! And why isn't Slashdot on the list?!?