Source: Cecilia Kang, N.Y.Times ( Paid Registration )

The sites, which mostly offer free services, profited off consumer data by feeding it into advertising that targets specific users by demographics, according to the F.T.C. report.

Most of the companies collected the age, gender and the language spoken by users. Many platforms also obtained information on education, income and marital status. The companies didn’t give users easy ways to opt-out of data collection and often retained sensitive information much longer than consumers would expect, the agency said.

The F.T.C. said the report showed the need for federal privacy legislation and restrictions on how companies collect and use data.  The agency concluded self-regulation has been a failure.

Read Full Article: F.T.C. finds Meta, YouTube, TikTok collect more data than most users realize