Apple, Google FTC mobile tracking overview:
- Who: Four Congressional Democrats sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.
- Why: The Congressmembers urged the FTC to investigate Apple and Google over their mobile data tracking practices.
- Where: An FTC investigation would affect the privacy of Apple and Google users nationwide.
In a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, four Democratic Congressmembers urged the agency to investigate the allegedly “unfair and deceptive” tracking, collection and sale of millions of mobile phone users’ data by Apple and Google.
Signed by senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Ron Wyden of Oregon and Rep. Sara Jacobs of California, the letter accuses the two tech companies of knowingly facilitating “these harmful practices by building advertising-specific tracking IDs into their mobile operating systems,” Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, according to Law30.
“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,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is beyond time to bring an
end to the privacy harms forced on consumers by these companies.”
Apple, Google tracking set as default
Apple and Google built their operating systems, iOS and Android, respectively, to include unique tracking identifiers to be accessed by “the unregulated broker market,” according to the letter. These trackers allow brokers and other third parties to link a device’s data to other consumer data, such as consumers’ movements and web browsing activity. This data can then be acquired by app developers and online advertisers.
Apple and Google only recently began to allow consumers to opt out of the tracking. Apple used to enable the tracking by default and required users to navigate their many phone settings to turn it off, while Google continues to make it the Android default.
Tracking poses ‘serious privacy harms’
While the advertising identifiers are “purportedly anonymous,” data brokers also sell databases that link the identifiers to consumers’ names, email addresses and telephone numbers, the Democrats wrote. A user’s identity can also be determined by using location data to figure out where “they sleep at night.”
Apple and Google fail to “warn consumers about the predictable harms that would result by using their phones with the default settings,” the lawmakers wrote, which exposes hundreds of millions of Americans to exploitation and “serious privacy harms.”
The Congressmembers note such tracking is particularly invasive and concerning given the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Apple’s and Google’s policies would allow private and governmental third parties access to users’ phone data, including their locations, rendering them “particularly vulnerable to privacy harms,” the letter says.
Google “never sells user data, and Google Play strictly prohibits the sale of user data by developers,” using the unique IDs to “give users more control and provide developers with a more private way to effectively monetize their apps,” a Google spokesperson told Law360. The spokesperson noted Android users can delete their advertising ID at any time.
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