Axios had a rare interview with Samuel Levine, director of the Federal Trade Commission’s bureau of consumer protection. The focus — the agency won’t hesitate to sue companies that play fast and loose with customers’ data.
“We are not afraid to take companies to court,” Levine told Axios. “We are not afraid to litigate.”
- “Yes, we’re a government agency,” he said, but the FTC is also — in the words of former FTC chair Michael Pertschuk — the “greatest public-interest law firm in the country.”
- “We try to focus on cases where we can have the most impact… we want to send a message to other companies in the marketplace.”
Let’s quote the article further.
Levine, a top deputy of tech-industry critic FTC chair Lina Khan, is playing a pivotal role in shaping the agency’s potential new rules on “commercial surveillance,” — which includes the targeted advertising that drives so many online business models.
- Those rules also focus on data security, and privacy advocates see them as an essential means to restrain industry abuses in the absence of a federal online privacy law. The agency could issue them next year.
So, the FTC is cracking down on data usage. Sure, they’ll focus on big companies primarily. That sets up a framework for other companies, particularly smaller ones, to leverage in their legal proceedings. And that’s why we care.
I’ve said a couple of times this year how I believe data management is a space to offer services. One can see the walls closing in, making the bounds of acceptable behavior smaller, and thus space to help customers leverage their data more effectively and safely. I’m highlighting this space further.