AppleInsider is supported by its audience and can earn commission as an Amazon affiliate and affiliate partner on qualifying purchases. These affiliate partnerships do not affect our editorial content.
Four lawmakers want an FTC investigation into the “harmful practices” of Apple and Google to allegedly collect personal information and take advantage of it.
Even though Apple’s privacy moves have apparently cost Facebook billions of dollars in lost revenue, four Democrats believe that’s not enough. Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), Sen. Cory Booker (D., NJ), and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D., California), wrote to the FTC requesting an investigation.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the four claim that Apple and Google “knowingly facilitated these malicious practices by incorporating ad-specific tracking IDs into their mobile operating systems.” However, they acknowledge that Apple has made changes and that Google says it will add similar protection.
“Until recently, however, Apple disabled this tracking ID by default and required consumers to dig through confusing phone settings to turn it off,” the letter said. “Google still activates this tracking identifier by default, and until recently did not even provide consumers with an opt-out.”
“These identifiers have fueled the unregulated data broker market,” lawmakers continue, “by creating a single piece of information linked to a device that data brokers and their clients can use to link to other consumer data.”
“[For example, it] it is often possible to easily identify a specific consumer in a dataset of anonymous location records, “the letter says,” by looking at where they sleep at night.
Privacy is becoming increasingly important
Published minutes after the controversial ruling of the Supreme Court, the four legislators believe that the issue of how people can be detected by such systems is exacerbated after the overthrow of Roe vs. Wade.
“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,” the four said. “Private actors will also be encouraged by state money laws to seek out women who have had an abortion or are seeking an abortion by accessing location information.”
Consequently, the four want the FTC to “investigate Apple and Google’s role in transforming advertising into an intense system of oversight that encourages and facilitates the unlimited collection and constant sale of Americans’ personal data.”
Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, designed to limit possible identification of individuals, was released in October 2021 as part of iOS 14.5.
Neither Apple nor Google commented.