FTC Sues Analytics Firm for Selling Users' Geo-Location Data
The Federal Trade Commission is suing to stop an analytics company from selling geo-location data on over 100 million consumers, including where they live and if they recently visited an abortion clinic.
According(Opens in a new window) to the FTC, an Idaho-based company called Kochava has been collecting the geo-location from other data brokers in the industry and through smartphone apps in an effort to sell the information for marketing and analytics purposes.
Kochava has been selling the information as a data feed(Opens in a new window) covering 125 million monthly active users, and charging thousands of dollars per month for access. The geo-location data can include the precise longitude and latitude of the user’s smartphone, along with timestamps and the IP address. To protect consumers, the company strips out users' identities from the data and assigns them a mobile advertising ID.
Nevertheless, the FTC says the supposedly anonymized geo-location data can been easily compiled with other information from third-party sources to pinpoint a user’s identity.
“For example, the location of a mobile device at night is likely the user’s home address and could be combined with property records to uncover their identity,” the US regulator says. “In fact, the data broker has touted identifying households as one of the possible uses of its data in some marketing materials.”
The same data can also expose sensitive locations a consumer has visited, such as a reproductive health clinic, places of worship, or a domestic violence shelter. “The data may also be used to identify medical professionals who perform, or assist in the performance, of abortion services,” the FTC’s lawsuit(Opens in a new window) adds.
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