The Federal Trade Commission is warning the “shadowy” advertising-tech marketplace that it is on the lookout for any practices that run afoul of its rules, and that any claims ad-related data collection is anonymized to protect consumers are no shield from the long arm of the regulator.

And while the FTC is an independent agency, the White House has added its muscle to the warning by circulating it to the press.

Kristen Cohen, acting associate director of the FTC’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, tied the warning to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and concerns about women’s health data being manipulated or misused.

Also: Advertisers Tell FTC That Banning Targeted Ads Threatens Trillions in GDP

Cohen focused on “a particularly sensitive subset at the intersection of location and health: information related to personal reproductive matters — for example, products that track women’s periods, monitor their fertility, oversee their contraceptive use or even target women considering abortion.” She said the concern was not simply theoretical, citing a company that targeted ads to consumers who were nearing an abortion-services clinic and another case of Google and Facebook allegedly sharing information culled from period and infertility tracking apps.

But the general message was that the ad tech marketplace was “murky” and “opaque,” and that anonymization was no defense for collection of highly sensitive info, particularly health-related, particularly given the granularity of geolocation info.

“When consumers use their connected devices — and sometimes even when they don’t — these devices may be regularly pinging cell towers, interacting with WiFi networks, capturing GPS signals and otherwise creating a comprehensive record of their whereabouts,” Cohen said.

Cohen said claims that data is anonymous or has been anonymized are often deceptive. She cited the example of one set of researchers able to identify 95% of an anonymized data set of people using just four location points.

“Firms making claims about anonymization should be on guard that these claims can be a deceptive trade practice and violate the FTC Act when untrue,” she said. Given the research she cites, it sounds like an anonymization claim would be a tough defense at the FTC.

She said companies that “over-collect, indefinitely retain or misuse consumer data” can expect to hear from the agency.

The FTC is authorized to sanction any false or deceptive advertising or claims under authority given by Section 5 of the FTC Act. ■

The FTC has concluded that ISPs are collecting and sharing more data about their customers than those customers are aware of, including internet traffic and real-time location data, while "failing to offer consumers meaningful choices about how this data can be used."

FTC chair Lina Khan said the report would be part of an "ongoing conversation" about commercial data practices, but one that could be "incorporated" into FTC action.

That is according to a staff report culminating a two-year investigation into the data practices of AT&T, Cellco Partnership (Verizon Wireless), Charter, Comcast, T-Mobile and Google Fiber, a report the FTC said revealed "troubling aspects of some ISP data collection practices." The FTC also sought info from three affiliated ad entities, AT&T’s Appnexus (rebranded Xandr); Verizon’s Verizon Online; and Oath Americas (now Verizon Media).

Cable ISPs pushed back hard on the report and its "lumping" of their business with the Big Tech platforms NCTA-the Internet & Television Association suggested should be the FTC's focus.

Also Read: FTC Asked to Prevent Surveillance Advertising

The report pointed out that news outlets had reported that location data had been shared with third parties including "car salesmen, property managers, bail bondsmen, bounty hunters, and others without reasonable protections or consumers’ knowledge and consent."

It also said that while companies claim to give consumers choice, many make it tough to exercise that choice, and while they promise to keep data only as long as it is needed for a business purpose, what falls under that definition varies "widely."

The FTC said the report's findings underscore the need to restrict data collection and use.

The report was approved unanimously 4-1 by the commission, with Khan issuing a separate statement.

Khan said the report highlighted 1) problems with the notice-and-consent framework for data collection and sharing; 2) the expansion of ISPs into vertically integrated businesses including ones providing content for their broadband "pipes"; and 3) the potential use of "hyper-granular" online dossiers to discriminate against users.

Khan also said she thought the FCC had the expertise to "fully oversee internet providers," and that it should reassert that authority by "once again put[ting] in place the nondiscrimination rules, privacy protections, and other basic requirements needed to create a healthier market."

That was a reference to the FCC's decision during the Trump Administration to reclassify broadband access as an information service, eliminate those rules, and deed oversight of most of that to the FTC. To reassert that authority and return the rules, the FCC will need a third Democrat since the commission is currently at a 2-2 political tie.

While the FTC has appeared to be more focused on big edge players like Facebook and Twitter of late, it talked about how the ISPs had become tech giants offering "voice, content, smart devices, advertising, and analytics" that all implicated data collection on a big scale.

Among the "troubling" practices report found were that several of the ISPs "combine data across product lines; combine personal, app usage, and web browsing data to target ads; place consumers into sensitive categories such as by race and sexual orientation; and share real-time location data with third-parties."

The companies have privacy protections, but the FTC said that while a number of them promise not to "sell" data to third parties, they allow it to be shared and otherwise monetized "and hide disclosures about such practices in fine print of their privacy policies."

While the association's representing telecom ISPs provided cautious responses focusing on their support of federal privacy legislation, NCTA led with major pushback on both the report and the FTC's characterization of ISPs before joining in a call for consistent privacy rules across all sectors, including online platforms and other Big Tech.

“Consumers’ online safety and privacy is a top priority for the wireless industry, and federal legislation that uniformly protects users across all platforms is the best way forward," said CTIA, the wireless association. "We are looking forward to continuing to work with the FTC, lawmakers and companies across the ecosystem to ensure consumers are protected.”

“As the FTC has called for numerous times, and as previously urged by USTelecom, Congress must enact a national, comprehensive federal privacy framework that puts consumers first and applies uniformly to all companies operating online," said USTelecom, which represents wired telecom ISPs.

“The FTC’s report provides a highly distorted view of ISP data collection policies and inappropriately attempts to lump broadband providers into the same category as the Big Tech platforms. Cable broadband providers take seriously their responsibility to safeguard the personal information of their customers and do not surveil their customers or sell their location data. Viewed objectively, today’s presentation is a broad attack on online advertising generally, not specific ISP actions. And what is further missing from today’s report is the much larger story about Big Tech platforms that are premised on maximizing user attention. What is needed is a consistent set of privacy rules across the online marketplace on a technology-neutral basis. We look forward to continued engagement with policymakers to forge a strong, consistent framework for privacy protection.”

The FCC is seeking comment on the methodology for its 2021 survey of whether advanced telecommunications is being deployed to "all Americans" in a "reasonable and timely fashion, with the COVID-19 pandemic putting new urgency into the answer.

Related: Broadband Data Mapping Rules go Into Effect Sept. 17

The report is mandated by Sec. 707 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The vote was 3-2, with both Democratic commissioners strongly dissenting, having signaled that the FCC should improve its data collection process before collecting new data.

The notice of inquiry explains that "because our next Report is due 180 days from release of this Inquiry, we will not have information from the Digital Opportunity Data Collection [the FCC's proposed new and improved data collection regime] in time for use in the next Report."

For the past three years--under Republican chairman Ajit Pai, the FCC has concluded that that deployment is reasonable and timely because steady progress was being made toward closing the digital divide. Had it not concluded that was the case, the FCC would be empowered to regulate to make it so. Previous FCC's under Democratic chairs had concluded deployment was not reasonable and timely, chiefly because broadband was not available to all.

Democrats look at "all" in the Congressional mandate and find deployment wanting. Republicans look at the pace of increase and conclude it is reasonable and timely.

But the newly issued request for input from deployers acknowledges that there is still work to be done.

"Closing the digital divide—and bringing to every American the economic, education, health, civic, and social benefits that a broadband connection provides—continues to be the Commission’s top priority," the Broadband Deployment notice of inquiry said. "As the ongoing the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more Americans to work, study, see their doctors, and stay connected to friends and loved ones through broadband connections, it serves to underscore the importance of closing this divide and ensuring that people throughout the country have access to digital opportunity."

Stakeholders have until Oct. 5 to comment on how the FCC is structuring the latest survey.

The FCC is proposing to count a range of speeds, what it calls a "holistic view," provided over both fixed and mobile wireless, rather than counting only broadband offered above a benchmark speed "to best capture the ways Americans are using advanced telecommunications capabilities."

The notice of inquiry concedes the issues the problems the FCC recognizes with previous deployment data collections (via its form 477) that have led to congressional mandates to do better and the FCC's own proceeding to that point and seeks comment on to what extent possible overstatement of fixed and mobile deployment may still occur.

Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who supported Democratic commission conclusions that deployment was not reasonable and timely, said the FCC was setting itself up for again neglecting to meaningfully discuss obstacles like affordability and digital literacy. "We have not updated our methodology. We have not modernized our thinking about what is truly broadband. We have not suggested that we will give serious thought to real impediments like cost. At a time that we desperately need a candid accounting from the FCC about the state of broadband in this country, the agency is stubbornly oblivious to how its reporting is at odds with the lived experience of so many people in this country," she said.

"[T]he ugly truth is that when the agency released its last Broadband Deployment Report earlier this year it concluded that broadband deployment was “reasonable and timely” nationwide," she said. "In other words, it found all was well. It clapped its hands and said job done. That’s just not right."

Commissioner Geoffrey Starks seconded that assessment in his dissent.

"[T]he Commission continues to repeat its mistakes. As I noted in my dissent from last year’s Notice of Inquiry, I fundamentally disagree with the approach of comparing broadband providers’ deployment in one year against their deployments in prior years to measure 'progress,'” he said. "I continue to believe this approach gives us little understanding of internet inequality and the ways to combat it. We also continue to rely on the Commission’s misleading Form 477 data. I am disappointed that, despite broad recognition that Form 477 has distorted our view of the digital divide, the Commission did not develop alternatives in time for this year’s Notice of Inquiry."

The Republican commissioners issued no statements.

Eight out of 10 people say that the potential benefit from widespread data collection by companies is not worth the risks. A smaller, but still two-thirds (66%), majority say the same about government data collection.  

Given that result, it is no surprise that almost as many 79% say they are concerned about the way their data is used after it is collected by companies, with 64% saying the same about the government.  

But in either case, a majority say there is nothing they can to do stop it. 

That is according to a new Pew Research Center survey on digital privacy. 

It found that 79% said they were not confident that companies will admit mistakes or take responsibility for misuse of personal data. 

"Eight-in-ten adults say they are at least a little concerned about how much personal information social media sites (85%), advertisers (84%), or companies they buy things from (80%) might know about them," the survey found.

Data security is also a big concern, with 70% saying their personal data is less secure than in the past, with only 6% saying they believe data is more secure now. 

The survey found that six of 10 U.S. adults say they do not think it is possible to through daily life without having data collected on them by both. 

There are some race-based differences in views of privacy. 

Blacks (60%) are much more likely than whites (43%) to say they think the government is tracking most or all of what they do on their computers, tablets and phones.  

The survey was conducted June 3-June 17, 2019, among a total of 4,272 U.S. adults. The margin of error was 1.9 percentage points. 

The FCC has take the first step toward providing more accurate data on where broadband is, and isn't.

The commission has been under pressure from both sides of the aisle in Congress to improve data collection, and FCC chair Ajit Pai has conceded the data has to get better, particularly so that Universal Service Fund broadband subsidies can be targeted to where they are most needed, furthering his goal of weeding out waste, as well as fraud and abuse, in subsidy programs.

The commission voted unanimously, with two partial dissents by the Democrats, on a Report & Order Thursday (Aug. 1) to create a new Digital Opportunity Data Collection regime based on geospatial broadband coverage maps provided by fixed Internet service providers--it does not apply to mobile broadband, at least not yet.

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) will be charged with the new data collection, and will have to create a portal for collecting the carrier data and allow for crowdsourced challenges to the maps.

Related: Free Press Optimistic About FCC Broadband Data Update

For the time being, the FCC will also continue to collect form 477 data based on census blocks, but at the same time will require fixed broadband suppliers to also provide coverage maps based on shapefiles (in this case the shape is a polygon), which NCTA-The Internet & Television Association had proposed.

NCTA had also suggested retaining the census block-based 477 reporting in the interim so the FCC could still do an apples-to-apples comparison of deployment trends "not associated with the shift in reporting methods."

“Today’s FCC action to improve its broadband data collection practices is a significant victory for consumers that will meaningfully improve the accuracy of broadband maps and enable the Commission to more efficiently target resources to areas that lack broadband access," said NCTA. "Our industry is committed to quickly moving forward with providing the Commission the more granular data and will continue to work with policymakers on solutions that will connect all Americans to the internet.”

USTelecom had wanted the FCC to implement a database of broadband-addressable locations, or what USTelecom called a “Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric” overlay at the same time so the FCC could better pinpoint how many and exactly where service wasn't available. The FCC likes the fabric idea, but said it did not want to wait until that database was developed and its data set of structures and locations served and unserved was available before it started collecting the polygonal shapefile data.

“The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is a once in a generation opportunity to expand broadband service, and today the FCC made clear it should be governed by the best and most granular broadband availability maps we can deploy," said USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter. "We all know we have to get this right, and that is why we are excited to work with the Commission in nailing down the critical next steps and sequencing to ensure broadband support can be directed to rural communities and enterprises as quickly, efficiently, accurately, and sustainably as possible.”

The FCC will also establish a mechanism for the public to crowdsource the accuracy of the maps. NCTA has said that should only be a supplement to the process. "[T]he Commission will need to determine under what circumstances the results of such testing would be relevant in the proposed crowdsourcing process," NCTA blogged before the decision.

The FCC is asking about how to implement USTelecom's overlay "fabric." NCTA said that is worthy of consideration, but that the "suggested benefit comes at a significant financial and administrative cost to the Commission and providers and there are numerous questions about whether, and how, it will work in the real world. 

In addition to the R&O, which is a final decision, the FCC approve a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on whether it should sunset the for, 477 collection, how it can apply the regime to mobile, and technical standards for carriers that might help them supply more precise data. 

NCTA is advising the FCC not to dramatically expand the data collection, saying that the FCC "shouldn't let the mythical perfect in mapping be the enemy of the very good in identifying the unserved."

Chairman Pai framed the new broadband mapping effort as "identifying the declining the number of people without access" by going beyond the census-block level reporting instituted by his predecessors. He said a key is to no longer identify a census block as served if only one person in that block is served. He said it would paint the clearest picture yet of who has broadband and who doesn't.

"[T]oday, we get rid of the Christmas tree and stop driving the Pinto. We’ve heard the message loud and clear that these data sets are no longer good enough," said commissioner Brendan Carr. He said no nibbling around the edges would do and the FCC was starting over. "It is time to kick the Christmas tree to the curb," he said. 

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel agreed: "today’s effort to improve the data collection that informs our nation’s broadband maps comes not a moment too soon. Bring it. We need to fix this mess." Rosenworcel dissented in part, however, because of various flaws she saw in the item. One was that the item did not address the existing National Broadband Map. Another was giving USAC the responsibility of overseeing the maps.

But she applauded the effort as a start, and for its use of crowdsourcing.

Commissioner Michael O'Rielly also had problems with USAC overseeing the collection given its work load and his longstanding concerns with USAC's competency and transparency--he has proposed outsourcing USAC's functions.

Commissioner Geoffrey Starks was generally supportive, saying it was a "nudge" in the right direction, but also had issues. “I believe that the order and NPRM, by adopting shapefile reporting and by proposing to create a broadband location fabric, asks many of the right questions as it begins the process of establishing the Digital Opportunity Data Collection. However, while the item makes a few relatively minor fixes to the Commission’s Form 477 data collection, it does not address the most glaring problems with it.”

“The FCC has taken a good first step toward improving the accuracy of its broadband-deployment data," said Free Press research director S. Derek Turner. "The new Digital Opportunity Data Collection process should address the most common complaint about past agency mapping efforts: the potential for overstating deployment in certain rural areas. Free Press has long called for better broadband deployment data from the FCC, and we’re cautiously optimistic that today’s reforms will enhance accuracy while maintaining the public’s full access to this critical information."

"We’re pleased to see the FCC today take a step forward on improving the accuracy of broadband mapping," a Microsoft spokesperson said. "The measures proposed around granularity, leveraging crowdsourcing to obtain additional data including usage information and related efforts to improve accuracy closely mirror our suggestions. If fully enacted, this should provide a more accurate view of where coverage is still lagging and enable the FCC to provide funds that ensure the areas that most need support are receiving it." But the company also says there is more work to be done.

"[W]e encourage the FCC to take the opportunity to improve Form 477 [the current broadband data collection framework]. It’s important that the most accurate data methodology is used to distribute funds and assess progress. We encourage the FCC to act to bring this into alignment, and Congress to continue its work on proposedlegislation that also addresses these important issues. "

“ACA Connects has long agreed with the FCC and many Members of Congress that the FCC’s current broadband deployment data collection needs to be improved by making it more granular and accurate," said ACA Connects President Matt Polka. "At the same time, any new collection requirements should not swamp the many hundreds of small broadband providers that must file with new obligations they are simply not equipped to handle. Based on those objectives, ACA Connects believes today’s action by the FCC, requiring broadband providers to file geospatial coverage data and enhancing this information with crowdsourcing, is a reasonable step forward. That said, the FCC now needs to get the details of the collection correct, including by ensuring smaller providers can easily comply.”

The rapid, technology-fueled evolution of the TV business has created opportunities and challenges for advertisers and programmers. None of those has more upside than tapping into the “smart” part of the smart TV.

It’ has taken a few years for the market to appreciate what it means to have a connected TV. The device that dominated the last 70 years of entertainment and advertising was suddenly blessed with new capabilities. The advent of smart TVs was potentially disruptive, and even threatening, to certain entrenched players, such as set-top box makers with a vested interest in dumb TVs; traditional service providers, who distributed the boxes as a revenue source; and the measurement industrial complex that profits from small panels and iffy set-top-box data.

These parties have resisted — and at times have actively hindered — the development of a vibrant smart TV ecosystem. That is, until the changing TV landscape starting showing the networks, agencies and programmers just how transformative these new data streams can be.

Data Drives Pace of Innovation
Now, internet-connected TVs (and streaming devices) are providing a more intuitive content experience and are helping audience-based buying and addressable advertising reach scale. All of those innovations depend on one thing: data. And unlike data from set-top boxes, panels or other sources, smart TVs measure all types of viewing, and as it happens — over-the-air, through a set-top box or via an over-the-top service. Smart TV data brings transparency to a clouded TV data market.

Related > Consumers Uncomfortable With Smart TV Data Collection: Survey

Earlier this year, in a case involving Vizio, the Federal Trade Commission for the first time clarified the required fair information practices for capturing and using information about the content playing on TVs.

As these and other data-market participants continue to digest and apply these new rules of the road, Vizio has led the industry in educating consumers about the collection and use of viewing history. We firmly believe that collecting and using this data — in nonidentified ways — means better, more relevant experiences on all of their entertainment devices for consumers.

Here are the main pillars of the new standards set by the FTC for all TV makers:
1. Smart TV makers must prominently disclose their viewing data collection, use and sharing practices — including how the data is augmented, such as with demographic or cross-device information or inferences, the types of companies to whom it is disclosed and the purposes of the disclosure (i.e., analytics, audience measurement and ad targeting).

2. The notification must be unavoidable and separate from any terms of service or privacy policy.

3. Smart TV makers must get express permission from TV owners before collecting, using or sharing television-viewing information.

Only if the entire industry comes into better compliance with these new (government-mandated) standards for collecting and using viewing history will the promise of smart TVs to deliver better entertainment and a more precise and efficient programming and advertising marketplace be fulfilled.

Unfortunately, not all companies appear to us to be equally committed to meeting the new legal standards, even though those standards are now clear. Our testing indicates that many companies are still hiding behind opaque, muddying disclosures, rather than leveling with consumers in plain, easy-to-follow disclosures as the FTC has required.

The FTC’s requirements for prominent notice of actual practices and explicit consent have been plainly stated for many months now. Any past legal uncertainty has long been cleared up. There is no excuse in today’s market for not being compliant in these basic respects.

If a TV maker can’t execute a firmware update or other mechanism to meet its clear obligations, then it’s hard to see why the right answer is to persist with tracking practices the FTC has deemed unfair.

Metrics Cleanup Will Take Time
Because compliance is not 100% across the industry and many actors are using back-door tactics to gain consumer consent (such as TV ad tech posing as something else), cleaning up the market is not a fast or easy endeavor. Many companies, brands and agencies are therefore seemingly reliant on squishy metrics. Agencies buy and resell these metrics on a campaign basis and perhaps don’t realize the potential breaches of privacy, the general lack of standards or the associated risks.

This doesn’t have to be the case. Those companies have to change their models to be more transparent, from the opt-in until the data is delivered. At Inscape, we can’t hide or obscure anything; when our partners receive their data, a daily device count is one of the key metrics. But we know that is not the case for everyone.

There is simply no easy third-party way to track which clients are or are not detecting content. And therein lies the challenge. It’s like counting impressions based on the number of people who have the internet instead of those that actually saw the ad on a screen.

As an industry, we can and must do better.

When flawed data — information poorly gathered and misrepresented — is peddled, the resulting smoke and mirrors harms media buyers and could lead to more regulatory sanctions and complaints from wary viewers and brands. We’re all fortunate to have businesses based on television, a wonderfully sophisticated device whose potential is just beginning to be tapped, 80 years after it first entered the living room. The industry needs to work together to ensure that the smart TV environment remains secure and to build a higher-functioning source of consistent and actionable viewership data.

Jodie McAfee is senior vice president of sales and marketing atInscape.tv.

A group of privacy advocates have asked the Federal Trade Commission to act on a complaint against MVPDs' collection and use of subscribers' personal information.

The group filed a complaint a year ago charging that Comcast, AT&T and Cablevision (owned by Altice USA) were not providing adequate disclosure of their collection and marketing of customers' personal information gleaned from set-top boxes.

In a letter dated June 12, those groups -- Public Knowledge, Center for Digital Democracy, TURN–The Utility Reform Network, Consumer Watchdog, Consumer Action and Consumer Federation of America -- urged the FTC to act on the complaint.

An intervening court decision -- FTC v. AT&T Mobility -- cast doubt on the FTC's authority to act on the privacy practices of the non-common carrier businesses of common carriers; AT&T, Comcast and Cablevision are all ISPs under Title II classification at the moment.

But they pointed out in the letter to FTC chair Maureen Ohlhausen that the even-more-recent decision by that court has vacated the earlier decision, so the FTC is now free to act on the complaint, and should.

Related > FCC to Court: FTC Common-Carrier Exemption Is Activity Based

"You have underscored the important role that the FTC plays as an expert cop on the privacy beat, and now that the AT&T Mobility decision has been vacated, it is time for the FTC to do some policing." they wrote. "We ask that you now publicly and expeditiously resolve the pending complaint concerning cable TV and satellite TV privacy, an area of joint jurisdiction with the FCC."

Related > Court Throws Out Throttling Case Against AT&T Mobility

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last month agreed to an en banc (full court) review of its three-judge panel decision that left the Federal Trade Commission's authority to oversee privacy in some circumstances very much in doubt. The court also said that in the interim that panel decision was not to be cited as precedent of the Ninth Circuit. Such en banc review is unusual, but the decision had prompted a lot of attention given that potential consumer privacy impact.

Consumers aren’t comfortable with their data being collected by smart TVs, according to a survey conducted by Videa, Cox Media’s automated ad platform.

The survey found that 48% of consumers said they were somewhat, mostly or completely uncomfortable with advertisers collecting smart TV data.

Related: Vizio Settles Smart TV Data Collection Complaint

Only 39% said they are somewhat, mostly or completely comfortable with their data being collected by advertisers. The answer most given, at 21% of respondents, was that they were completely uncomfortable with the data collection.

Related: When Smart TVs Get Too Personal, What's the MSO Role?

The study also asked about cord-cutting. Consumers surveyed said they would miss live programming or specific programs if they gave up their pay TV subscriptions. They also said they would miss news channels, weather, sports, channel-surfing and the variety they now get.

In these divisive times, the survey also found that the majority (61%) of respondents said they had some or a lot of trust in the information they get from local news organizations.

A survey last year bythe Pew Research Center found that 22% of the adults it surveyed had a lot of trust in local news, and that another 60% had some trust, for a total of 82%. That compared to 18% who had a lot of trust in national news organizations and 59% who had some trust. Social media garnered only 4% of respondents who said they had a lot of trust, and 30% had some trust.

Related: Pew: Older Demos Drive Mobile News Growth

Videa’s survey found that 59% of the respondents said they get their local news from TV, compared with 38% via social media, 36% from print and 36% from local radio.

Among viewers who said they had a clear preference, 62% said they trusted local news over national news, while 38% said they trusted national news more.

Of those trusting local news, 31% said they trust it because there is less bias or no political agenda, the survey found.

Videa's survey was conducted online with 1,145 adults responding between March 21 and March 22. The figures have been weighted to make they representative of all U.S. adults.

The Center for Digital Democracy said Tuesday it is presenting Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler with a copy of a new report looking at data collection by Internet-service providers and others -- Google for one -- to try and help guide the FCC's proposed rulemaking on a broadband privacy protection framework.

The FCC is scheduled to vote March 31 on a regulatory approach to the FCC's newly gained authority -- via reclassification of ISPs under Title II -- over broadband customer proprietary network information (CPNI).

Wheeler has made it clear the rules are about ISPs and the data they collect, not aimed at or applicable to data collection and use by edge providers and others, which he says is the province of the Federal Trade Commission.

But the report suggests the FCC needs to look more broadly, saying broadcasters and "marketing giants" like Google also use data practices that threaten consumer privacy.

The FCC is proposing allowing ISPs and their affiliates to use customer data to market their own services--like adding phone to a broadband/traditional video bundle -- unless that customer opts out.

CDD wants the FCC to make that an opt-in regime, as the FCC is proposing for other uses of consumer data.

Among the other conclusions/recommendations in the report:

"Cable and phone broadband Internet Service Providers are building an extensive consumer data collection and targeting system...acquiring companies that allow them to gather more information on consumers and subscribers....working with leading data brokers to add even more information about their customers and consumers to target" and "using state of the art techniques to build and use data profiles, including tracking a consumer across all of their devices, mobile, PC, even TV, merging offline and online data files," said CDD executive director Jeff Chester.

Chester said ISPs are turning TV and video and set-tops into a new data-collection tool, including for programmatic advertising, that can include sensitive info like financial, health, ethnicity and geolocation.

He added that there need to be Fair Information Practices (FIPs) targeted at these data practices of ISPs. He said the FCC should also look at the relationships between ISPs and other digital data and marketing companies.