Data Broker's 'Staggering' Sale of Sensitive Info Exposed in Unsealed FTC Filing

One of the world's largest mobile data brokers, Kochava, has lost its battle to stop the Federal Trade Commission from revealing what the FTC has alleged is a disturbing, widespread pattern of unfair use and sale of sensitive data without consent from hundreds of millions of people. ArsTechnica: US District Judge B. Lynn Winmill recently unsealed a court filing, an amended complaint that perhaps contains the most evidence yet gathered by the FTC in its long-standing mission to crack down on data brokers allegedly 'substantially' harming consumers by invading their privacy. The FTC has accused Kochava of violating the FTC Act by amassing and disclosing 'a staggering amount of sensitive and identifying information about consumers,' alleging that Kochava's database includes products seemingly capable of identifying nearly every person in the United States.

According to the FTC, Kochava's customers, ostensibly advertisers, can access this data to trace individuals' movements -- including to sensitive locations like hospitals, temporary shelters, and places of worship, with a promised accuracy within 'a few meters' -- over a day, a week, a month, or a year. Kochava's products can also provide a '360-degree perspective' on individuals, unveiling personally identifying information like their names, home addresses, phone numbers, as well as sensitive information like their race, gender, ethnicity, annual income, political affiliations, or religion, the FTC alleged.

Beyond that, the FTC alleged that Kochava also makes it easy for advertisers to target customers by categories that are 'often based on specific sensitive and personal characteristics or attributes identified from its massive collection of data about individual consumers.' These 'audience segments' allegedly allow advertisers to conduct invasive targeting by grouping people not just by common data points like age or gender, but by 'places they have visited,' political associations, or even their current circumstances, like whether they're expectant parents. Or advertisers can allegedly combine data points to target highly specific audience segments like 'all the pregnant Muslim women in Kochava's database,' the FTC alleged, or 'parents with different ages of children.'

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