In a statement to the House Judiciary Committee, EPIC told lawmakers that merger review must consider data protection and that the Federal Trade Commission must block Google's plan to acquire Fitbit. "Far from protecting market competition and promoting innovation, the Commission is facilitating industry consolidation," EPIC said in the statement released in advance of the hearing. EPIC pointed to the Facebook-WhatsApp deal and the failure of the FTC to protect the personal data of WhatsApp users after the merger. EPIC noted that if the FTC approves Google's acquisition of Fitbit, it will be the 230th firm that Google/Alphabet has acquired "with barely a whimper from the Federal Trade Commission." EPIC said: "This is not antitrust enforcement. This is agency negligence." EPIC previously testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about mergers in the online advertising industry after EPIC warned the FTC that Google's acquisition of DoubleClick would diminish privacy and stifle innovation. EPIC earlier opposed Doubleclick's acquisition of Abacus, explaining that the deal would lead to increased profiling of American consumers.
Following a DC consumer protection suit that EPIC filed against AccuWeather in 2018, the company has stopped deceptively gathering users' location data. In its Complaint, EPIC charged that AccuWeather grabbed consumers' location data even when they expressly opted out of location tracking. EPIC also charged that AccuWeather failed to disclose that it transferred location data to advertisers. Now AccuWeather, following EPIC's case, has changed its business practices. Users can decline dvertising and other non-functional uses of their device information, and users can delete the information that AccuWeather collects about their device. EPIC has long advocated for the privacy of location data. EPIC filed a "friend of the court" brief with the US Supreme Court in, Carpenter v. US, a case concerning police surveillance and a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission concerning Uber's tracking of subscribers. EPIC also opposed Apple's tracking of iPhone users. EPIC also maintains detailed webpages on location privacy.
EPIC told a federal court this week that the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence must comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Created by Congress in 2018, the AI Commission is tasked with considering "the methods and means necessary to advance the development of” AI in a national security setting. But the Commission has operated largely in secret and claims that it is exempt from open government laws. The Commission has received almost 200 closed-door briefings, with no published agendas and no public minutes. EPIC, which filed suit against the Commission in September, explained that Congress left “no doubt that the AI Commission is subject to the FOIA.” The Commission recently released a report to Congress, which criticized the EU General Data Protection Regulation and called for greater "government access to data on Americans." EPIC’s case is EPIC v. AI Commission, No. 19-2906 (D.D.C.).
