Internet service providers secretly collect, sell your data

A new report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has revealed that internet service providers (ISPs) collect and share far more data about their customers than many of them believe. These scary practices include access to all of your internet activity and real-time location data.

The report examined six internet service providers, which account for roughly 98 percent of the mobile internet market, including AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile.

The report identified several concerning data collection practices, such as combining personal, app usage, and web browsing data to target ads and placing consumers into sensitive categories, like race and sexual orientation, if you can believe it.

These categories are extremely specific, at times bizarre, and often deeply concerning. The list of categories included examples such as “viewership-gay,” “seeking medical care,” and “unlikely voter.”

Even though various ISPs promised not to sell consumers’ personal data, they allowed it to be used, transferred, and monetized by others. Moreover, subscribers’ real-time location data was shared with third-party customers like “car salesmen, property managers, bail bondsmen, bounty hunters, and others.”

They also hid disclosures regarding these practices in the fine print of their privacy policies. Finally, although the ISPs claimed to offer consumers choices about how their data is used, they actually made it difficult for consumers to exercise such choices, and that they kept data on file for much longer than expected.

Targeted advertising based on browsing data isn’t new; it’s how Facebook and Google make the majority of their money. However, the FTC report reveals the ISPs’ level of involvement and rampant abuse of their customers’ private data, and emphasizes how unsafe we are online, urging higher levels of ISP.

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