The FTC report published on Thursday looked at the data-gathering practices of Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Discord, Reddit, Amazon, Snap, TikTok and Twitter/X between January 2019 and 31 December 2020. The majority of the companies’ business models incentivized tracking how people engaged with their platforms, collecting their personal data and using it to determine what content and ads users see on their feeds, the report states.
This doesn't often turn out well for the watchers...
The FTC’s findings validate years of reporting on the depth and breadth of these companies’ tracking practices and call out the tech firms for “vast surveillance of users”. The agency is recommending Congress pass federal privacy regulations based on what it has documented.
Because regulations fix everything. Well, I'm sure one day it'll work. anyway...
That's the deal - you give up privacy to get access to the social media platforms. If they didn't make money off your data, then you'd have to pay to use them instead. Now you can argue that it's not clear this is the case. Or that the "cost" isn't worth the benefit (no arguments from me).
ReplyDeleteAnd for any government to be critical of mass surveillance - cry me a river.