FTC’s broker location data action – a shot across bow
Two huge US data brokers, Mobilewalla Inc. and Gravy Analytics, have just been served with bans from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for their collection and sale of consumer location data. While not household names to consumers, they process billions of units of data which they’ve sold without consent. In the case of Mobilewalla, one of the largest data brokers in the world, the FTC says they tracked profiles from 1.6 billion devices across more than 35 countries and then sold it to third parties. Gravy Analytics, via a subsidiary, collected vast amounts of location data and sold that to government agencies.