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FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

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Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#121

Post by jyrkesh »

iamacyborg wrote: post #111
jkelleyrtp wrote: post #28

From the one dissenting statement by the FTC board: -- > The 6(b) orders are rife with broad (and sometimes vague) specifications that burden analysis and oversight could have helped reduce. "all Documents Relating to the Company’s or any other Person’s strategies or plans, Including, but not limited to: a) business strategies or plans; b) short-term and long-range strategies and objectives; c) expansion or retrenchm…

> Such a request would be suited to an antitrust investigation. But as part of an inquiry ostensibly aimed at consumer privacy practices, it amounts to invasive government overreach. Rather ironic to consider this "invasive government overreach" but not to levy the same accusations towards the perpetrators of surveillance capitalism.

I'd love to see the law that allows the FTC to demand broad sets of documents like this without a warrant or even a purported crime.

Unfortunately, I'd imagine it exists, but that it basically says "the FTC can do whatever it wants if it thinks a company is being 'abusive' or 'misleading consumers'" with some vague definition of what that means.

Yet another example of Congress legislating away their ability to legislate and/or the courts' ability to judge.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#122

Post by edoceo »

duskwuff wrote: post #116
jawzz wrote: post #67

From the dissenting opinion by Commissioner Noah Joshua Phillips: > These are different companies, some of which have strikingly different business models. And the orders omit other companies engaged in business practices similar to recipients, for example, Apple, Gab, GroupMe, LinkedIn, Parler, Rumble, and Tumblr, not to mention other firms the data practices of which have drawn significant government concern, like…

> The only plausible benefit to drawing the lines the Commission has is targeting a number of high profile companies It's almost as though the majority of the Commission recognizes that its resources are limited, and that going on a wild goose chase investigating a bunch of smaller social media companies would simply ensure that nothing would be accomplished. Apple isn't even a social media company. I have no idea wh…

LinkedIn is social, and would have made a nice even 10 - which would trigger an oversight event.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#123

Post by akersten »

Despegar wrote: post #115
akersten wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, the order is one step short of "copy your Shared drive to a hard disk and mail it to us, we'll take care of the rest." I'm genuinely interested in what US Code permits the FTC to ask for such a trove of company information and strategy. My suspicion is that they're reaching. We can talk about whether we feel it's an overreach or not - you clearly feel the opposite of me - but I hope someone can chime in with…

It's in the press release: >The FTC is issuing the orders under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which authorizes the Commission to conduct wide-ranging studies that do not have a specific law enforcement purpose.

My read of Section 6(b) (from [0]) is that it requires the FTC to prescribe specific questions for a company to answer:

> the Commission may prescribe annual or special, or both annual and special, reports or answers in writing to specific questions

I do not see how the requirements of part 12 of this Order are "specific questions," in fact they are quite broad to me. But I suppose that's for a lawyer to decide.

[0]: https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/statutes/f... (Control+F "Sec. 6")

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#124

Post by mtoddsmith »

ehsankia wrote: post #117
tape_measure wrote: post #4

Facebook, WhatsApp, Snap, Twitter, YouTube, ByteDance, Twitch, Reddit, and Discord.

Why list Facebook, then list WhatsApp, but not Instagram? Is Instagram not part of it then? If WhatsApp wasn't there, I'd assume they're both under FB but listing WhatsApp separately is strange.

Doesn't Facebook manage the ad network that would show up on Instagram?

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#125

Post by duskwuff »

edoceo wrote: post #122
duskwuff wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only plausible benefit to drawing the lines the Commission has is targeting a number of high profile companies It's almost as though the majority of the Commission recognizes that its resources are limited, and that going on a wild goose chase investigating a bunch of smaller social media companies would simply ensure that nothing would be accomplished. Apple isn't even a social media company. I have no idea wh…

LinkedIn is social, and would have made a nice even 10 - which would trigger an oversight event.

Edited my post with some more details. While LinkedIn is a social media site of sorts, it's outside what I believe the focus of the investigation to be.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#126

Post by sonotmyname »

jyrkesh wrote: post #121
iamacyborg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such a request would be suited to an antitrust investigation. But as part of an inquiry ostensibly aimed at consumer privacy practices, it amounts to invasive government overreach. Rather ironic to consider this "invasive government overreach" but not to levy the same accusations towards the perpetrators of surveillance capitalism.

I'd love to see the law that allows the FTC to demand broad sets of documents like this without a warrant or even a purported crime. Unfortunately, I'd imagine it exists, but that it basically says "the FTC can do whatever it wants if it thinks a company is being 'abusive' or 'misleading consumers'" with some vague definition of what that means. Yet another example of Congress legislating away their ability to legisl…

> without a warrant

6(b) orders are essentially warrants under the FTC Act:

"Section 6 of the FTC Act provides another investigative tool. Section 6(b) empowers the Commission to require an entity to file “annual or special . . . reports or answers in writing to specific questions” to provide information about the entity’s “organization, business, conduct, practices, management, and relation to other corporations, partnerships, and individuals.” 15 U.S.C. Sec. 46(b). As with subpoenas and CIDs, the recipient of a 6(b) order may file a petition to limit or quash, and the Commission may seek a court order requiring compliance. If a party fails to comply with a 6(b) order after receiving a notice of default from the Commission, the Commission may commence suit in federal court under Section 10 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. Sec. 50. After expiration of a thirty-day grace period, a defaulting party is liable for a penalty for each day of noncompliance. Id.; Commission Rule 1.98(f), 16 C.F.R. Sec. 1.98(f)."

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do/enforcement-authori...

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#127

Post by bhelkey »

kodah wrote: post #43
asciident wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I like social media, and get a lot of benefit from it. I like that it's free and supported by targeted ads, rather than a paid service. Since we disagree, and I imagine there are many people with the same opinions as both you and me, why not make it opt-in, so you only encounter social media if you choose to make an account, and then still only see it if you go to it and/or install it intentionally? Wait, that's h…

Social media isn't opt-in though. Facebook has routinely collected data on non-Facebook users, my name/likeness/content can appear on social media without my consent, and there are hardly controls for protecting such things in any meaningful sense. I deleted Instagram months ago and I have friends that have routinely told me that profile is still up, just in a limited capacity. How is this opt-in? An even better exam…

> I deleted Instagram months ago and I have friends that have routinely told me that profile is still up, just in a limited capacity. How is this opt-in?

Did you temporarily disable your account instead of deleting it? Deletion appears to only be available from web/mobile web, which is not great but deletion is only three steps. [1]

[1] https://help.instagram.com/370452623149242

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#129

Post by random5634 »

So pathetic. Despite the vast amount of documentation the FTC demands (which seems wildly overbroad), I can answer their question in pretty complete substance here - for free.

1) how social media and video streaming services collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information;

Everything is tracked, and they have a very good idea of your demographic information. They track all interactions on the platform in giant data lakes, including clickstream activity showing sequences of actions, they collect all browser features, ip addresses etc, they collect all referral information. If their code is used by other websites, they collect all the clickstream and profile data from those services. They use publicly available datasets, census tract information, and datasets the govt provides such as DMV databases and voter registration files to enrich the data. They may synthesis what are called "features" from this data.

This is used for social media updates, fraud control and ad targeting among other purposes.

2) How they determine which ads and other content are shown to consumers;

Based on a machine learning models which look at the qualify and performance of ad copy related to folks who have been a) targeted by advertiser by specific criteria they then b) develop and estimate of which other users would also be interested and their level of interest based on all data points they maintain in the user profile, scored along an economic axis and user engagement and satisfaction targets (ie, all ads vs no ads).

3) Whether they apply algorithms or data analytics to personal information;

Yes - they do on a huge scale, and AWS / Google and others are busy designing custom chips to help speed up this type of analysis.

4) How they measure, promote, and research user engagement; and

They make their platforms as addictive as possible, with notifications, stimiulations. A popular book for these companies might be "Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" if the FTC actually cared about being educated at all in this space.

5) How their practices affect children and teens.

Affect them significantly, children are much easier to "hook", be it with computer games, e-cigs, or social media or even sugar or lack of sleep. The effects of all of these are very negative. Parents can have a power impact on these items.

Does anyone think social media companies do not use personal information and monetization of that to provide their hyperscale "free" services?

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#130

Post by Fogest »

jcjdbdndndthrow wrote: post #87

Transparency coming? How about if I see an ad I should be allowed to see who bought the ad? How about how they chose to target me? Is it because of my race or interests or gender or age? How about the option to opt out? How about the option to configure your future ad targets / attributes? How about no special black box algorithms? Past the addiction issues, how can these exist while guaranteeing no racial and other…

I still would like to go back to the days where not all my feeds on things like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc... all became just an algorithmic feed of what they think I like. It would be nice to go back to that day in age when it was chronological. I'm all for also having a recommended feed on things like YouTube because I do want to find similar content I may enjoy, so I appreciate that YouTube still has a normal chronological subscription feed I can view too.
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