wsj.com,
Mon 08/29:
FTC Sues Idaho Company for Selling Sensitive Tracking Data
WASHINGTON—The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against data broker Kochava Inc., saying the Idaho company sold geolocation data from millions of mobile devices that could be used to trace people to abortion clinics, addiction recovery facilities and other sensitive locations. WSJ’s Daniela Hernandez explains the difference between this pill and other contraceptives, and how over-the-counter access could affect reproductive care across the U.S. Photo: Laura Kammermann
Kochava recently filed its own pre-emptive lawsuit against the FTC, anticipating the agency’s suit but saying the FTC was ignoring privacy improvements Kochava has made to its practices. The potent combination of location data and user-generated health data creates a new frontier of potential harms to consumers,” wrote Kristin Cohen, an FTC privacy official. But the FTC is entering a legal gray area with its new approach, according to lawyers. They buy and sell the information, often to personalize ads or measure whether ads drove users to make purchases. Kochava’s “data may be used to identify consumers who have visited an abortion clinic and, as a result, may have had or contemplated having an abortion,” as well as medical professionals who provide abortions, the FTC complaint said. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, President Biden issued an executive order encouraging the FTC to take new actions to protect consumers’ privacy when they seek information about reproductive health. Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com and Patience Haggin at patience.haggin@wsj.com
Read full article here:
wsj.com/../ftc-sues-idaho-company-for-se..
(Paywall)
This news aggregator is non-commercial and provided
as a public service by the Magnusson Institute,
a Nevada 501(c)(3) non-profit. All articles
and images are copyright of their respective
copyright owners.