US accuses social networks such as Facebook, TikTok, X and YouTube of monitoring users

Social media giants engaged in operations “extensive surveillance” of its users to make money from their personal information, according to a report by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The document, based on queries made almost four years ago among nine companies, found that they collected large amounts of data, sometimes through third parties, and who could indefinitely retain information collected about users and non-users of their platforms.

“The report exposes how social media and streaming companies collect massive amounts of personal data from Americans and They sell them for billions of dollars a year“FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.

“The failure of several companies to adequately protect children and teenagers online is particularly worrying,” he said.

Khan argued that these practices exposed affected individuals to the potential for identity theft or harassment and threatened their freedoms.

According to the report, business models, which typically involve targeted advertising, incentivized the mass collection of user data.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) responded that Internet users understand that targeted ads are necessary to access online services for free and said his group “vehemently” supports a comprehensive national data privacy law.

“We are disappointed with the FTC’s continued characterization of the digital advertising industry as engaged in a ‘mass commercial surveillance’“‘” IAB CEO David Cohen commented in a post responding to the report.

“Nothing could be further from the truth, as countless studies have shown that consumers understand the value exchange and welcome the opportunity to access free or highly subsidized content and services.”

The findings were based on responses to requests sent in late 2020 to companies such as Meta (Facebook), YouTube, Snap, Amazon Twitch owner ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, y X formerly known as Twitter.

“Google has the strictest privacy policies in our industry: we never sell people’s personal information and we don’t use sensitive information to serve ads,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda told AFP.

The report found that data collection practices were “woefully inadequate” and that some companies They did not delete all the data that users they were asked to delete.