EDITORS NOTE: We’re in the very early days of understanding the true impact of the end of Roe v. Wade, and on Monday, the Federal Trade Commission opened up an entirely new front in the conflict: the role of corporate surveillance and data gathering in potentially identifying and prosecuting people who have abortions — and they did it right in our backyard, by suing the Sandpoint-based data broker Kochava.
The implications are profound. A lawsuit like this might fundamentally rewrite how companies are allowed to collect user data and the additional steps they may have to take to ensure identities remain private, or it might come to nothing at all, in which case we’ll get insight into the steps we will all need to take as individuals to prevent our phones from potentially being used against us by the state.
Where the combatants in this fight land aren’t obvious, either: the lawsuit was authorized by 4 of 5 FTC commissioners, two appointed by Biden, and two appointed by Trump. Kochava and people familiar with its business contend the lawsuit is frivolous and targets them for practices that are common throughout the industry, but one of the most vocal voices against the peril of this kind of data collection is Republican Mike Crapo, Idaho’s senior US Senator.
It’s a fascinating, messy field of play.
The lawsuit made international news, but the deepest piece we’ve seen yet is from our friends at the Sandpoint Reader. What follows is long and has a lot of legal language, but I highly encourage you to dig in. The implications are vast and potentially affect all of us.
There’s also a lot we don’t know yet, and this is just the beginning of what is almost guaranteed to be a long fight over the surveillance capabilities of devices we all rely on, and how that data might be used to prosecute people for accessing health care.
The Reader is going to be following this story closely and we’ll keep you posted as we all learn more. Have a great weekend. — Luke
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Kochava Inc. drew international headlines Aug. 29 when the Federal Trade Commission announced a lawsuit aimed at the Sandpoint-based data broker and analytics company, alleging geolocation data sold by Kochava to its clients can be used to track people’s visits to sensitive locations, including reproductive health clinics.
“The FTC alleges that by selling data tracking people, Kochava is enabling others to identify individuals and exposing them to threats of stigma, stalking, discrimination, job loss and even physical violence,” the agency stated in its announcement. “The FTC’s lawsuit seeks to halt Kochava’s sale of sensitive geolocation data and require the company to delete the sensitive geolocation information it has collected.”
While the complaint was officially filed at the end of August, the FTC had approached Kochava about these potential problems with its data a month earlier, “in or about July and August 2022,” according to a pre-emptive lawsuit Kochava filed against the FTC.
The company, through its Kochava Collective marketplace, purchases mobile device location data from third-party suppliers, then aggregates it and sells it in customized feeds to clients so they can track the success of targeted marketing campaigns, monitor how effective advertising is in generating foot traffic to specific physical stores or other locations, and assess how well billboard advertising works.
According to Kochava, data suppliers collect that geolocation information from users who have consented to making it available via mobile operating systems such as Apple iOS and Google Android, as well as apps and websites.
