Business Blog
FTC issues 6(b) orders to social media and video streaming services
One digit can make a lot of difference. Would the Proclaimers have walked 501 miles? How effective was Love Potion #10? Did the Beatles ask would you still need me, would you still feed me when I’m 65? With so much attention on Section 5 of the FTC Act, some may overlook another important provision of the statute: Section 6(b). The FTC has issued 6(b) orders to nine well-known social media and video streaming platforms seeking information about their data collection, use, storage, disclosure, and deletion; advertising; user engagement; and demographic information.
Under Section 6(b), the FTC may require a company to file “reports or answers in writing to specific questions” about its business practices. The FTC just sent 6(b) orders to Amazon.com, Inc., ByteDance Ltd. (operator of TikTok), Discord Inc., Facebook, Inc., Reddit, Inc., Snap Inc., Twitter, Inc., WhatsApp Inc., and YouTube LLC.
The purpose of the orders is to help the FTC understand how the companies use consumer data. Specifically, the 6(b) orders seek more information about:
- how the companies collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information;
- how they determine which ads and other content are shown to consumers;
- whether they apply algorithms or data analytics to personal information;
- how they measure, promote, and research user engagement; and
- how their practices affect children and teens.
Each company will have 45 days from the date it receives the order to respond.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.