The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a report that examines the data collection and use practices of major social media and video streaming services, finding that the companies engaged in vast surveillance of consumers in order to monetize their personal information while failing to adequately protect users online, especially children and teens.
The report, called A Look Behind the Scenes: Examining the Data Practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Services, is based on responses from nine companies to questions about how the companies collect, track, and use personal and demographic information, how they determine which ads and other content are shown to consumers.
Read more…
Source: Malwarebytes Labs
Related:
- UK: Met Police is planning to root out corruption with use of ‘sophisticated’ new technology that monitors officers’ phones and computers
April 25, 2022
The Met Police will root out rogue officers with ‘sophisticated’ new technology that can monitor officers’ emails and work phones for ‘alarming’ words in a bid to stamp out its culture of sexism and racism. The software will also track their movements while in a police station and even monitor tasks like photocopying – as replicating ...
- UK spy agencies sharing bulk personal data with foreign allies was legal, says court
April 6, 2022
A privacy rights org this week lost an appeal in a case about the sharing of Bulk Personal Datasets (BPDs) by MI5, MI6, and GCHQ with foreign intelligence agencies. The British agencies have never stated, in public, whether any of them have shared BPDs with foreign intelligence agencies – they have a so-called “neither confirm nor ...
- Inspector general says the U.S. post office surveillance program exceeded legal authority
March 31, 2022
An inspector general probe into the U.S. Postal Service surveillance program, known as iCOP, concluded that the agency did not have the legal authority to conduct the sweeping intelligence collection and surveillance of American protesters and others between 2018 and 2021. The Postal Service Office of Inspector General launched an investigation into iCOP — which stands ...
- UK government starts public consultation on telco security
March 3, 2022
While the world watches Ukraine, the British government has quietly dropped a requirement for mass surveillance of UK internet users by their service providers. A public consultation on the Electronic Communications (Security Measures) Regulations 2022, currently in draft, revealed that a controversial plan to bring back internet connection records monitoring has been deleted after pushback from ...
- How a Saudi woman’s iPhone revealed hacking around the world
February 17, 2022
A single activist helped turn the tide against NSO Group, one of the world’s most sophisticated spyware companies now facing a cascade of legal action and scrutiny in Washington over damaging new allegations that its software was used to hack government officials and dissidents around the world. It all started with a software glitch on her ...
- CIA illegally harvested US citizens’ data, senators assert
February 11, 2022
Two US senators have gone public with evidence of what they assert is a previously secret bulk data collection effort by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), conducted outside the law and without oversight. Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, of Oregon and New Mexico respectively, on Thursday announced that in April 2021 they sent a ...

