Justin Sherman on the FTC Settlement with Location Data Broker X-Mode
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2024
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a settlement with location data broker X-Mode Social. X-Mode collects over 10 billion location data points from all over the world every day, and sells it to clients in a range of industries, like advertisers, consulting firms, and private government contractors. The FTC argued that the data broker was conducting unfair business practices, including selling people’s sensitive location data.
To discuss the FTC settlement and its implications, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sat down with Justin Sherman, Founder and CEO of Global Cyber Strategies and a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. They talked about the FTC’s groundbreaking decision to list sensitive locations about which X-Mode cannot sell data, the likelihood that we will see further FTC action against data brokers, and the persistent need for comprehensive privacy legislation to better address harms.
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| 0:39.0 | Work in finance. At CFA Institute, our programs and courses are deeply rooted in ethical perspective. |
| 0:46.0 | But we don't just teach. |
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| 0:57.2 | visit CFA Institute.org slash set the standard today. This is very specific so there's no ambiguity for X |
| 1:11.4 | mode in terms of what do we need to do internally to make sure |
| 1:15.3 | that if someone emails one of our salespeople and says, hey, we love data about this |
| 1:20.9 | children's health clinic, that salesperson theoretically should look at that list |
| 1:26.2 | and say, hey, this hits two of the boxes here. I cannot sell this to you. So from that standpoint, |
| 1:32.2 | I think, you know know it's a really important |
| 1:34.3 | piece of the order and again it's unprecedented so it you know the FTC is |
| 1:39.3 | forging a new path here in thinking about location data harm. |
| 1:43.2 | I am Eugenia Lothi, Lawfares Fellow in Technology Policy and Law. |
| 1:48.0 | And this is the Law Fair Podcast January 19, 2024. |
| 1:53.0 | Last week, the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, |
| 1:57.0 | reach a settlement with location data broker X-Mode Social. |
| 2:01.0 | X-Mode collects over 10 billion location data points from all over the world every day, and sells it to clients in a range of industries, like advertisers, consulting firms, and private government contractors. |
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