Federal Trade Commission Monday Announced It has placed orders with nine of America’s most popular social media and streaming sites, with Intel to provide them with business practices ranging from data collection to advertising, as long as they monitor user engagement overtime.
Orders placed with Bydense, the parent company of Amazon, Discord, Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube and Dictoc, are not intended to be subject to any specific disciplinary action. Rather, investigations should be part of a broader study that examines how each of these companies handles consumer privacy.
As Axios, this First announced The news of the FTC study, however, points out that the lack of a specific goal in this initiative does not mean that it is impossible. These types of inquiries, especially called 6 (b) orders, have been used in the past to collect data that could be used in past inquiries. In February, for example, the FTC Given Separate 6 (b) orders for Amazon, Facebook, Google and other players as part of the agency Continuing investigations To the reactionary behavior of these companies.
The orders announced on Monday specifically ask for details:
- How social media and video streaming services collect, use, monitor, evaluate or obtain personal and statistical information;
- How they determine which ads and other content is displayed to consumers;
- Whether they use algorithms or data analytics for personal information;
- How they measure, promote and research user engagement; And
- How their practices affect children and adolescents.
Above all, the FTC directive seeks to understand how all of the above practices affect children and adolescents in particular. Each of the companies named above has 45 days from the date of receipt of the order to answer the question with Intel.
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“The FDC’s attempt to systematically review data collection and business practices on the largest technology sites is long overdue,” Virginia Democrat Sen. Mark Warner said in a statement. For a very long time an opaque market could be vulnerable to abuse, digital advertising fraud and consumer harm. ”