The Federal
Trade Commission has announced that
mobile advertising company InMobi will pay a $950,000 civil penalty and implement a comprehensive privacy
program to settle FTC charges it deceptively tracked the locations of hundreds
of millions of consumers, including children, without their knowledge or
consent to serve them geo-targeted advertising.
According to the FTC, InMobi
misrepresented that its advertising software would only track user locations
when they opted in. However, InMobi was tracking user locations whether users opted in or refused to provide permission. InMobi's advertising
network has a reach of more than one billion devices via thousands of
apps so there is a staggering amount of data that the company has illegally obtained.
Under the terms of its settlement with
the FTC, InMobi is subject to a $4 million civil penalty, which is suspended to
$950,000 due to the company's financial position. The company will be required to delete all information
it collected from users and it is prohibited from collecting consumers’
location information without their affirmative express consent. InMobi
must also institute a comprehensive privacy program that will be independently
audited every two years for the next 20 years.
How much money did InMobi make by
intentionally deceiving consumers? This deception demonstrates why there
needs to be stronger laws and greater enforcement mechanisms in place to deter
and stop illegal behavior.
Copyright 2016 by Bradley S. Shear, Esq. All rights reserved.
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