(NewsNation) — A coalition of advocacy groups is backing a proposal that would prohibit Meta’s ability to profit from minors’ data, calling the social media company’s collection practices “abusive.”
The Center for Digital Democracy and 27 other groups are supporting the Federal Trade Commission’s proposal that would prevent Facebook, owned by Meta, from monetizing data of users younger than 18.
The FTC is seeking to enact the blanket ban by modifying a 2020 consent decree that required the company to beef up its privacy program.
“Meta has violated the law and its consent decrees with the Commission repeatedly and flagrantly for over a decade, putting the privacy of all users at risk,” the advocacy groups said in a letter to the FTC supporting the modification.
“In particular, we support the proposal to prohibit Meta from profiting from the data of children and teens under 18. This measure is justified by Meta’s repeated offenses involving the personal data of minors and by the unique and alarming risks its practices pose to children and teens,” the letter added.
In seeking the modification, the FTC alleges Facebook failed to comply with the 2020 order and misled parents about the company’s ability to control with whom children communicate on the Messenger Kids app. The FTC also alleges Facebook “misrepresented the access it provided some app developers to private user data.”
“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a May 3 news release. “The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures.”
This is the third enforcement action the FTC has taken against Meta. The commission filed a complaint in 2011 and secured a consent decree in 2012 that barred the company from misrepresenting its privacy practices.
The FTC later filed a second complaint alleging the company violated that first order, and a second order was agreed to in 2019 and took effect in 2020. Facebook was issued a $5 billion civil penalty.
The FTC now says Facebook has failed to comply with the 2020 order, which required the company to expand its privacy program. It also expanded an independent third-party assessor’s role in evaluating the effectiveness of said program.
“The independent assessor, tasked with reviewing whether the company’s privacy program satisfied the 2020 order’s requirements, identified several gaps and weaknesses in Facebook’s privacy program,” the FTC said in its May 3 news release.
At the time, Meta said the FTC action was “a political stunt” and that the FTC failed to act against “Chinese companies, like TikTok.”
“We will vigorously fight this action and expect to prevail,” the company said.
Meta has until Aug. 1 to file a response to the FTC’s proposed order.
In addition to blocking the company from profiting off its young users’ data, the modified order would put a pause on new products until the third-party assessor could certify its privacy program fully complies with the order.
Meta would also be required to:
- Ensure compliance with the FTC order for any companies it acquires or merges with, and to honor those companies’ prior privacy commitments.
- Disclose and obtain users’ affirmative consent for any future uses of facial recognition technology.
- Strengthen existing privacy requirements, such as those related to privacy review, third-party monitoring, data inventory and access controls and employee training.
“The Commission has proposed a solution that would make it far more difficult for Meta to put children’s privacy at further risk by limiting the collection, use, and sharing of data for the purpose of monetization,” the advocacy groups said in the letter to the FTC. “The terms of the order modification bolster the Commission’s credibility and send the message that tech giants cannot evade regulation and meaningful accountability.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
