Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel are facing a court order banning their unlawful tracking and selling of peoples' locations, including visits to health care, churches and military sites.
The proposed court order would bar the selling, disclosing, or using sensitive location data in any product or service, and require the establishment of a sensitive data location program, the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday.
The FTC said Gravy Analytics and its subsidiary Venntel processed around a billion devices and their locations daily, didn't anonymize the data to safeguard people's information and didn't get consent from people.
Location-data company Unacast now owns Gravy Analytics, according to its website.
A spokesperson for Unacast told ConsumerAffairs that it reached an "amicable resolution" with the the FTC.
"Though we respect the FTC’s desire to bring about mature industry standards in the mobility analytics industry, we also believe these issues would be better addressed by thoughtful privacy legislation from duly elected lawmakers," the spokesperson said.
It marks the FTC's fourth action this year against challenging the sale of location information, said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection
“Surreptitious surveillance by data brokers undermines our civil liberties and puts servicemembers, union workers, religious minorities, and others at risk," Levine said.
The same day, the FTC also said broker MobileWalla was likely to agree to a ban on it selling sensitive location data after it allegedly collected and sold the information of millions of Americans without properly verifying consent.
Also on Tuesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said it was seeking tighter rules on data brokers who sell personal and financial information.