The US FTC releases a four-year study of how Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and six others collected and used data, finding “vast surveillance” of consumers

Meta, YouTube and other sites collected more data than most users realized, a new report by the Federal Trade Commission finds.

New York Times 2024-09-19 Cecilia Kang

Context & Ripple Effects

The study closes a four-year information-gathering process that began with the FTC's orders requiring major platforms to detail their data practices. It puts Meta, YouTube and TikTok in a shared regulatory frame rather than treating their data collection as isolated company issues.

For Meta, the findings also arrive after the agency proposed limits on monetizing children’s data, reinforcing that privacy, youth protections and ad-funded data use are overlapping enforcement concerns.

First-order effects

The FTC now has a consolidated record describing how the named platforms collect and use consumer information, increasing scrutiny of their data-governance and disclosure practices.
Meta, YouTube, TikTok and the other companies face fresh reputational and policy pressure over whether users understand the scope of data collection tied to monetization.

Second-order effects

The report gives privacy advocates and policymakers a common factual basis to press for stronger limits on collection, retention and data-driven advertising across platforms rather than company-by-company.
Platforms may face pressure to make consent flows and data controls easier to audit, while advertisers and other commercial partners gain another reason to examine the provenance of targeting data.

Third-order effects

If regulators continue to turn broad platform studies into targeted actions, privacy compliance could become a more central constraint on the data advantages that underpin large consumer platforms.
The longer-running issue is whether disclosure-based consent can govern extensive cross-service data use, or whether policy shifts toward firmer boundaries on collection and monetization.

The trend: The report is one data point in a shift from investigating individual privacy incidents toward examining the data-extraction model of major platforms as a systemic market and consumer-protection issue.

Discussion

@mattdpearce Matt Pearce on x
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@mulvihill79 Michael Mulvihill on x
A blistering new FTC report out this morning details long-standing practices of consumer surveillance and privacy abuses by streamers and social media companies. Essential reading and long overdue.
@senmarkey Ed Markey on x
The @FTC's expert report makes clear: Big Tech companies “bury their heads in the sand when it comes to children using their services.” COPPA 2.0 will stop this willful blindness. Let's pass this critical legislation.
@iblametom Thomas Brewster on x
“FTC Staff Report Finds Large Social Media and Video Streaming Companies Have Engaged in Vast Surveillance of Users with Lax Privacy Controls and Inadequate Safeguards for Kids and Teens.” Well, duh. https://www.ftc.gov/...
@chesterj1 Jeffrey Chester on x
Again & again, @linakhanFTC led FTC, with its on-point consumer protection division, peels back the commercial surveillance marketing apparatus which structures platforms & other US & global digital media. https://www.ftc.gov/...
@wendyndavis Wendy Davis on x
@linakhanFTC blasts behavioral advertising, says it “helped drive the creation of a multi-billion dollar industry specializing in tracking and collecting vast amounts of Americans' personal data.” https://www.ftc.gov/... [image]
@swiftstories Mike Swift on x
Breaking: The @FTC has just published a bit of a #privacy bombshell in releasing their long-awaited 6(b) report on #socialmedia data collection practices, calling it “stunning” and “unacceptable.” The @MLex story is here: https://content.mlex.com/... [image]
@ftc @ftc on x
FTC staff report finds large social media and video streaming companies have engaged in vast surveillance of users with lax privacy controls and inadequate safeguards for kids and teens 1/ https://www.ftc.gov/...

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