FTC Joins CFPB In Finally Taking Aim At Data Brokers As Trumpism Looms

The Federal Trade Commission is once again taking action against a data broker for illegally collecting and selling the sensitive data of Americans, including information on people’s trips to doctors offices, abortion clinics, and places of worship.

This time the FTC is taking aim at Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel, which the FTC announcement and complaint says violated the FTC Act by illegally selling sensitive consumer location data without obtaining verifiable user consent for commercial and government uses.

“Surreptitious surveillance by data brokers undermines our civil liberties and puts servicemembers, union workers, religious minorities, and others at risk,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “This is the FTC’s fourth action taken this year challenging the sale of sensitive location data, and it’s past time for the industry to get serious about protecting Americans’ privacy.”

We’ve long noted how the data broker space is an unregulated mess, routinely over-collecting data, selling access to any nitwit with two nickels to rub together (including foreign intelligence or criminals), and failing to generally secure it. Wired last month had a piece detailing how it was trivial to purchase U.S. troop and intelligence officer movement data as they visited sensitive U.S. locations in Germany.

An earlier scandal highlighted by Senator Ron Wyden involved the sale of abortion clinic visitor location data to right wing activists, who then targeted those vulnerable women with health care disinformation. More recently, a data broker was found to have leaked the social security numbers of 270 million Americans. This sector has been a hot mess.

This was all avoidable long ago. But U.S. officials repeatedly put greed ahead of public safety, consumer privacy, and even national intelligence for much of the last two decades. The targeted snoopvertising industry was simply too damn profitable to touch (it also helps the feds dodge warrants), resulting in scandal after scandal thanks to our refusal to pass a modern privacy law or regulate data brokers.

The CFPB also implemented new rules this week prohibiting the data broker collection and monetization of social security numbers. And while it’s great that some regulators are finally taking things seriously, why exactly we’re waiting until just months before Trump 2.0 dismantles federal governance, the CFPB, and likely the entirety of federal consumer protection is a question worth asking.