The US government is coming down hard on a data broker accused of selling consumers’ detailed location histories without their consent, highlighting privacy regulators’ growing focus on a sensitive and revealing form of personal information.
For the first time ever, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday it was banning a company from selling or licensing people’s precise geolocation data as part of a settlement with InMarket Media, a Texas-based data aggregator.
InMarket had allegedly gathered a vast trove of consumer location data from mobile apps and told users that the data would be used to improve the apps’ services — but did not disclose that it would also be used for targeted advertising, according to an FTC complaint.
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