Democrat lawmakers are pushing the FTC to open an investigation into Apple and Google’s online ad trackers, which they claim are engaging in unfair and deceptive business practices, and pose security risks to users.
US Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and House Representative Sara Jacobs (D-CA) formally requested the FTC open an investigation into the tech giants., and specifically data security of their mobile devices.
They had previously iterated concerns over online health data privacy in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade, and the prospect that if abortion were made illegal, the online data-trails left by women seeking the procedures, including cell phone geolocation data, could be used to identify and prosecute them. Some of the lawmakers even introduced data privacy bills, seeking to make it illegal to traffic in geolocation data and healthcare information.
This request of the FTC comes a month after 16 Democrat senators urged the FTC to to crack down on brokers buying and selling location data that could reveal travel to an abortion clinic.
In the more recent request, lawmakers noted that data collected by Apple and Google’s smartphones includes customer’s location and web browsing histories, which pose a particular risk to women seeking the procedure.
One complication is if this data were significant to a criminal investigation it would be made available regardless of any private data brokers, simply on the presentation of an information subpoena from a prosecutor. In order to ameliorate this risk, companies would have to be legally forbidden from acquiring it to begin with.
However such data is of great value to these tech giants, through its utility in targeting advertising and facilitating critical parts of their business models. That, combined with the political power they hold due to their political contributions and the nature of their power over electoral processes due to their control of such vital technologies, makes it unlikely they would accede to such measures, or allow politicians to enact them.
The lawmaker’s letter to the FTC noted, “Prosecutors in states where abortion becomes illegal will soon be able to obtain warrants for location information about anyone who has visited an abortion provider. Private actors will also be incentivized by state bounty laws to hunt down women who have obtained or are seeking an abortion by accessing location information through shady data brokers.”
They noted both Apple and Google use location specific advertising trackers, and that, “While purportedly anonymous, these advertising identifiers are easily linkable back to individual users.”
The request concluded that, “The FTC should investigate Apple and Google’s role in transforming online advertising into an intense system of surveillance that incentivizes and facilitates the unrestrained collection and constant sale of Americans’ personal data.”
