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The Sad Truth of the FTC's Location Data Privacy Settlement

The FTC forced a data broker to stop selling “sensitive location data.” But most companies can avoid such scrutiny by doing the bare minimum, exposing the lack of protections Americans truly have.

While the company is potentially downplaying the cost to its business, it is certainly true that any ripples from the settlement will be imperceptible to consumers and Outlogic's industry at large—one which profits by selling Americans' secrets to spy agencies, police, and the US military, helping the government to dodge the supervision of the courts and all its pesky warrant requirements. While it is easier, perhaps, to imagine how guests of “medical and reproductive health clinics, places of religious worship and domestic abuse shelters” are especially vulnerable to commercial forms of stalking, there are myriad ways in which people's whereabouts, once exposed, can endanger or ruin their lives. A test created by two recent Supreme Court rulings requires victims to demonstrate “concrete harm” to bring a case, even if tying any one company to an act of identity theft, harassment, or financial loss is, in nearly every instance, a fantastical objective.

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