cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/30014783

U.S. Federal Trade Commission urged to investigate Google’s RTB data in first ever complaint under new national security data law.

Google sends enormous quantities of sensitive data about Americans to China and other foreign adversaries, according to evidence in a major complaint filed today at the FTC by Enforce and EPIC. This is the first ever complaint under the new Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act.

The complaint (open pdf) targets a major part of Google’s business: Google’s Real-Time Bidding (RTB) system dominates online advertising, and operates on 33.7 million websites, 92% of Android apps, and 77% of iOS apps. Much of Google’s $237.9 billion advertising revenue is RTB.

Today’s complaint reveals that Google has known for at least a decade that its RTB technology broadcasts sensitive data without any security, according to internal Google discussions highlighted in today’s complaint.

The complaint cites internal Google communications showing that Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, rejected or failed to act upon internal calls (example) to reform the company’s dangerous RTB system in 2021. Instead, Google continued to expose sensitive American defense and industry personnel, and their institutions, to blackmail and compromise, in addition to causing grave privacy harm to consumers.

The complaint cites internal Google communications showing that Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, rejected or failed to act upon internal calls to reform the company’s dangerous RTB system in 2021. Instead, Google continued to expose sensitive American defense and industry personnel, and their institutions, to blackmail and compromise, in addition to causing grave privacy harm to consumers. Even Google’s so called “non personalized” data contains dangerous data.

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