What FTC’s Data Actions Say About Tracker Enforcement
*This article was originally published by Law360
Pixels are the new cookies. Here we go again. The Federal Trade Commission is continuing its assault on trackers with its latest enforcement actions against GoodRx Inc. and BetterHelp Inc.
Following on the heels of its August 2022 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which dubbed virtually any kind of tracking commercial surveillance, these enforcement actions use bad fact patterns — all of which are alleged — to engage in policymaking that could have much broader implications.
The FTC expects industry participants to understand these cases and to conduct their activities in accordance with them, notwithstanding that the orders are all stipulated — that is, agreed, without litigation or any judicial intervention.
This is almost certainly not the only set of FTC enforcement actions focused on trackers this year, or, for that matter, in 2024 and beyond.
Now is the time to take notice, audit your third-party pixel data flows, align them to your privacy policy and other public-facing representations — or vice versa — and consider whether any of the data is sensitive or could be considered sensitive.
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