The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit Aug. 29 against data broker Kochava, alleging the company sells information that could be used to track people's reproductive health and addiction treatment activities.
"Where consumers seek out healthcare, receive counseling or celebrate their faith is private information that shouldn't be sold to the highest bidder," Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in an Aug. 29 agency news release. "The FTC is taking Kochava to court to protect people's privacy and halt the sale of their sensitive geolocation information."
The agency alleges that Kochava purchases large amounts of location data obtained from hundreds of millions of mobile devices, then packages it into information feeds to sell for advertising and customer-analytics purposes. Kochava has even touted its ability to identify where people live through this data, the FTC said.
The information could be used to pinpoint people who have visited reproductive health clinics, places of worship, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and addiction recovery centers, possibly exposing them to stigma, discrimination and physical violence, the agency claims.
"This lawsuit shows the unfortunate reality that the FTC has a fundamental misunderstanding of Kochava's data marketplace business and other data businesses," Brian Cox, general manager of the Kochava Collective data marketplace, said in an emailed statement to Becker's. "Kochava operates consistently and proactively in compliance with all rules and laws, including those specific to privacy."
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and states began outlawing abortion, the FTC said July 11 that it would crack down on companies that shared Americans' reproductive health data. Kochava sued the FTC on Aug. 12, denying allegations that its data allows consumers' activities to be tracked, and launched a location-sharing blocking tool Aug. 10.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Idaho, where the company is based.