Mozilla Wants FTC to Fine Big Tech's Surveillance Giants

upstart writes:

Mozilla wants FTC to fine Big Tech's surveillance giants:

Mozilla's Chief Security Officer Marshall Erwin urged federal regulators to crack down on internet giants and web browser makers that don't protect their users' privacy - and to make them pay penalties for bad behavior.

"Privacy online is a mess, consumers are stuck in this vicious cycle in which their data is collected, often without their understanding, and then used to manipulate them," Erwin said during a US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) forum today on commercial surveillance and data security. "We see this rule-making process as a real opportunity to break that cycle."

The FTC is considering imposing stricter privacy rules on corporations to deter unwelcome online monitoring and shoddy data security. Thursday's public session was an early step in that rule-making process.

In August, the watchdog issued "advance notice of proposed rulemaking," and now, through October 21, it's seeking public comment about the "harms" related to businesses' collecting, analyzing, and monetizing people's information.

While any proposed rule will be put to a vote by FTC commissioners, it's worth noting that the regulator's choice of words - using the term "surveillance" rather than a euphemism such as "data gathering" - along with a recent lawsuit against data broker Kochava - seem to indicate it is inclined to codify some type of privacy regulations to limit companies' appetite for information harvesting.

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