Social media Companies Collect, Share and Process Vast Troves of Information About Their users whose offering little transparency or control, involling over how it is used by Systems incorporating Intelligence, the Us Federal Trade Commission Said in a report released on Thursday.
The report analyzed how Meta Platforms, bytedance’s TiktokAmazon’s Gaming Platform Twitch, and others Manage User Data, Concluding that Data Management and Retention Policies at Many of the Companies WERE indequate. “
YouTube, social media platform XSnap, discord and Reddit We also inclined in the ftc report, thought its findings were anonymized and did not reveal specific companies ‘practices’ practices. YouTube is owned by alphabet’s google.
Discord, A Communications Platform, Said the Report Lumps very different business models into one category, and that it did not offer advertising at the time the timetis at the timetid.
An x spokesperson said the report is based on practices from 2020 when the site was knowledge as twitter, which x has been since improved.
“X Takes User Data Privacy Seriously and ENSURERERERERES Users are of the data they are sharing with the platform and how it is being used, whose providing them with the option of Limiting the Data that is collected for Accounts, “The speakesperson said.
Only about 1 percent of x’s current users are betteren ages 13 and 17, the speakesperson said.
Other Companies did not immediatedly reply to requests for comment.
Social Media Companies Gather Data Through Tracking Technologies used in online advertising and buying information from data brokers, and other means, the ftc said.
“While lucrative for the companies, these surveillance practices can endanger people’s privacy, threaten their freedoms, and expert them to a host of harms, from identity theft to stalaming,” SAID FOTCCH Lina Khan.
Data privacy, particularly for kids and teens, have been a hot-babutton issue. The us house of representatives is Considering Bills Passed by the Senate in July Aimed at Addressing Social Media’s Effects on Youner Users. And Meta recently rolled out teen accounts that incorporate encroined parental controls.
Meanwhile, big tech companies have been scrambleing to acquire sources of data to train their emerging artificial-Illigence Technologies. The data deals are infreedly disclosed and often invulve private content locked behind paywalls and login screens, with scant or no notice to the users who posted it.
In addition to collecting data about how users engage with their services, most of the companies the ftc reviewed collected users’ age and gender or guessed it based on other information. Some also gathered information on users’ Income, Education and Family Status, The Ftc Said.
Companies gathered data on individuals who did not use their services, and some was not able to identify all of the ways they collected and used data, the ftc said.
Advertising Industry Groups Criticized The Report on Thursday, Saying That Consures Recognize The Value of Ad-Supoported Services.
“We are disappointed with the ftc’s continued characterization of the digital advertising industry as engaged in ‘Mass commercial surveillance,'” called David David Cohen, Chafe Exectivate of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, an advertising and marketing group which courses Snapchat, Tiktok and Amazon Among Its Members.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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