Surveillance Advertising
The endless collection of personal data to micro-target ads is the very core of Big Tech’s toxic business model and a powerful driving force behind the rise of extremism and misinformation, in addition to a myriad other societal harms.
Zach Praiss As recently as May, however, two investigations, one by advocacy group Accountable Tech and the other by the Washington Post, found Google continued to track and store location history for trips to abortion clinics.
Victoria Vinall In the climate Musk and Tucker built for themselves, tying your ad money to their projects could generate public condemnation. Representatives from the advocacy groups Free Press, Media Matters, Accountable Tech, and the Center For Countering Digital Hate all told Gizmodo that Carlson’s new show will be even worse for the reputation of any brand that chooses to advertise on Twitter.
Victoria Vinall Accountable Tech applauds President Biden’s bold demand to hold social media companies to account for their broken profit model, calling for long overdue safeguards that force online platforms and apps to prioritize the safety, health, and privacy of their users – especially children and teens.
Zach Praiss This ruling is a landmark victory in the fight against tech giants who extract users’ personal data without consent, manipulate us, and warp public discourse in service of their toxic business model.
Zach Praiss Today’s announcement by the FTC represents a critical first step toward cracking down on the egregious intrusions and exploitation of the ever-expanding surveillance economy.
Zach Praiss Other new parents on Instagram tell me they also feel they’re being recommended posts that prey on our specific insecurities, from breastfeeding to vaccination. “I found Instagram to be particularly devastating to my already fragile mental state in the postpartum period,” says Nicole Gill, the co-founder of Accountable Tech, a progressive tech advocacy group. “Getting suggested posts on ‘how to lose baby weight in 6 weeks,’ for example, almost immediately after having my daughter was not pleasant.”
Victoria Vinall Accountable Tech, a left-leaning advocacy group, argued in a policy memo comparing U.S. and E.U. tech reforms that Europe’s incoming regulation “reads like an omnibus bill written by top American lawmakers” because of its overlap with many U.S. proposals.
Victoria Vinall We applaud President Biden for recognizing the inconvenient truth Big Tech executives continue to deny—that their products and platforms now play an important role in defining the future of this country.
Zach Praiss The FTC received dozens of submissions from a diverse cross-section of leading advocacy organizations, businesses, lawmakers, and experts – along with more than 2,000 grassroots supporters – urging the Commission to promulgate new rules to prohibit this unfair method of competition.
Zach Praiss Big Tech will continue stoking discrimination, division, and delusion until we upend this perverse incentive structure – which is exactly what Reps. Eshoo and Schakowsky, and Sen. Booker’s Banning Surveillance Advertising Act would do.
Zach Praiss Accountable Tech has recently filed a petition for an FTC rulemaking that would ban “surveillance advertising” as an “unfair method of competition.” The group cites the ad practices of surveillance ad giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon.
Victoria Vinall "This week, the progressive-leaning advocacy group Accountable Tech petitioned the agency to ban 'surveillance advertising' as an unfair method of competition, defining the practice as targeted advertising based on consumers’ personal data."
Kenya Juarez "Accountable Tech, a progressive tech advocacy group, is urging the FTC in a new petition to write new rules to prohibit what it calls 'surveillance advertising' — or the pervasive use of hyper-targeted ads by dominant tech platforms."
Kenya Juarez Accountable Tech filed a significant rulemaking petition Thursday urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban surveillance advertising.
Zach Praiss But Warner and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a joint statement that the bill would allow consumers to move their data away from dominant platforms that are “often insensitive to consumers’ privacy, content or platform security expectations,” and advocacy group Accountable Tech shared similar sentiments in a memo Tuesday.
Victoria Vinall The Digital Services Act’s provisions on risk assessment and audit must stay and be improved if we are to hold tech companies accountable for harmful business models and rights violations.
Zach Praiss “I was frankly shocked by how much appetite there was for this, and by how receptive folks were to the pitch,” said Jesse Lehrich, a cofounder of the advocacy group Accountable Tech. According to a January poll commissioned by Accountable Tech, 81 percent of respondents said they would be in favor of reforms to “ban companies from collecting people's personal data and using it to target them with ads.” By contrast, only 63 percent said they supported breaking up companies like Facebook and Google, another idea that has been proposed by lawmakers like Elizabeth Warren.
Victoria Vinall "Privacy-minded companies including search engine maker DuckDuckGo and Proton, creator of ProtonMail, backed the legislation along with organizations including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Anti-Defamation League, Accountable Tech and Common Sense Media."
Kenya Juarez 
Big Tech companies are some of the most powerful and profitable companies in history, presenting new threats to the safety of communities and the health of democracy. We’re taking them on through legislation, regulation and direct advocacy.