A coalition of 22 consumer and public health advocacy groups called on the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) to investigate the preschool app market. The advocates’ letter urges the FTC to hold app makers accountable for unfair and deceptive practices, including falsely marketing apps that require in-app purchases as “free” and manipulating children to watch ads and make purchases.

The Center for Digital Democracy provides the following recommendations for comprehensive baseline Federal privacy legislation. We are building on our expertise addressing digital marketplace developments for more than two decades, including work leading to the enactment of the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act--the only federal online privacy law in the United States. Our recommendations are also informed by our long-standing trans-Atlantic work with consumer and privacy advocates in Europe, as well as the General Data Protection Regulation.

Leading consumer privacy organizations in the United States write to express surprise and concern that not a single consumer representative was invited to testify at the September 26 Senate Commerce Committee hearing
“Examining Safeguards for Consumer Data Privacy.”

CDD today joined the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and six other consumer groups in calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the misleading and manipulative tactics of Google and Facebook in steering users to “consent” to privacy-invasive default settings.

U.S. companies should adopt the same data protection rules that are poised to go into effect in the European Union on May 25, Public Citizen, the Center for Digital Democracy and Privacy International said today.

The European Union's updated data protection legislation comes into effect in Europe on May 25, 2018.  It gives individuals new rights to better control their personal information and strengthens some of the rights that already exist.  Enforcement and redress mechanisms have also been strengthened to ensure that these rights are respected.  And – importantly – the definition of personal data is wider in the GDPR than in the current EU legislation, and now includes online identifiers, such as an IP address. Read the summary of the eight rights here.

The right

In an open letter to Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckkerberg, members of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue urge the company "to confirm your company’s commitment to global compliance with the GDPR".

In a statement issued today, CDD, EPIC and a coalition of consumer groups have called on the Federal Trade Commission to determine whether Facebook violated a 2011 Consent Order when it facilitated the transfer of personal data of 50 million Facebook users to the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica.