Watchdog finds dubious data gathering, illusory solicitations for consent
The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday said many internet service providers are sharing data about their customers, in defiance of expectations, and are failing to give subscribers adequate choices about whether or how their data is shared.
The trade watchdog’s findings arrived in the form of a report [PDF] undertaken in 2019 to examine the data and privacy practices of major US broadband providers, including AT&T Mobility, Charter Communications, Google Fiber, T-Mobile US, Verizon Wireless, and Comcast’s Xfinity.
“[T]hese findings underscore deficiencies of the ‘notice-and-consent’ framework for privacy, especially in markets where users face highly limited choices among service providers,” said FTC boss Lina Khan in a statement [PDF].
“The report found that even in instances where internet service providers purported to offer customers some choice with respect to how their data was collected or used, in practice users were thwarted by design decisions that made it complicated, difficult, or near-impossible to actually escape persistent surveillance.”
The FTC study found that some ISPs combine data from their different
products and services, some combine data from personal app usage and web
browsing to target ads, some segment consumers into sensitive
categories related to race and sexual orientation, and some share
real-time location data with third-parties. …