EPIC Commends the Prohibition on the Collection and Sale of Location Information in Invasive Real Time Bidding System in FTC’s Mobilewalla Settlement

On January 6, EPIC submitted a letter comment to the Federal Trade Commission in support of its proposed consent decree with Mobilewalla Inc. regarding the company’s practices of selling sensitive location data. Mobilewalla, a data broker, collected location data from real time bidding (RTB) exchanges and third party aggregators without taking reasonable steps to verify consumers’ consent. Often consumers had no idea that Mobilewalla had obtained their sensitive location information, which can reveal whether a person attended a health clinic, religious organization, correctional facility, union affiliation, political gatherings, LGBTQ+ related locations, or military installations. Mobilewalla collected some of this information during the bidding process of RTB, in which sensitive user information is broadcast and companies can collect and use this information even when they don’t have a winning bid. Mobilewalla sold access to users’ data to advertisers, data brokers, and analytic firms. EPIC commends the Commission’s proposed order provision that prohibits Mobilewalla from collecting or retaining user data during online auctions for any purpose other than participating in the auction and supports the Commission’s work to address some of the serious privacy and security harms caused by RTB. EPIC regularly files comments in response to proposed FTC consent orders and complaints regarding business practices that violate privacy rights. EPIC has also works to limit the consumer harms that result from online tracking.