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The Federal Trade Commission’s September 2024 staff report found extensive collection and sharing of data by nine major social media and video-streaming companies, weak deletion and retention practices, and limited user control over some automated uses of personal information. It is a review of company-reported practices focused on 2019–2020—not a current audit or a legal ruling that every company broke the law.
What the FTC reviewed
FTC staff examined responses to orders issued under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act in December 2020. The orders asked about companies’ collection, tracking, use and sharing of personal and demographic information; advertising and content selection; algorithms and analytics; and effects on children and teens. The report was published in September 2024 and describes a snapshot of practices centered on 2019–2020.
The nine companies named by the FTC were Amazon/Twitch, Facebook/Meta, YouTube, Twitter/X, Snap, ByteDance/TikTok, Discord, Reddit and WhatsApp. The Commission voted 5–0 to issue the staff report. These details and the report are available in the FTC announcement and the full report.
What staff found about data collection and control
Data came from users and non-users
Staff reported that companies collected extensive information not only about account holders but also about people who did not use their services. Information could come from data brokers as well as direct interactions with a service. Some companies used tracking technologies such as pixels. The report raises concerns about the breadth of collection and the extent to which people could understand or control it.
#1 Best Overall
Sharing, retention and deletion raised concerns
The report describes broad sharing of data with affiliates and third parties, and cases where information could be retained indefinitely. Staff also found weak outcomes when users asked for data to be deleted: deletion of an account did not necessarily mean that all associated information was removed from company systems or from data shared elsewhere. FTC staff characterized collection, minimization and retention practices as “woefully inadequate.”
Advertising and automated systems created additional risks
Many companies relied on targeted advertising, giving them a business incentive to collect and analyze large volumes of information. Staff found that people had little or no ability to opt out of some data uses in algorithms, analytics and artificial intelligence. Company approaches to testing and monitoring those systems varied, and staff considered them inadequate. The report also recommended stronger safeguards against harms from advertising based on sensitive information.
The FTC report discusses competition as well as privacy. Access to large quantities of user data can help a company build a market position and barriers to entry; if competition is limited, people may have fewer choices among services and their privacy practices.
What the report said about children and teens
FTC staff concluded that the covered services did not adequately protect children and teens. Some companies said children were not on their services because the services were not directed to children or did not allow child accounts. Staff warned that this does not make the reality of child users disappear or remove applicable obligations under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
COPPA focuses on children under 13; the report identifies a distinct protection gap for teenagers. Staff found that teens were often treated like adults, with most companies allowing them to use services without account restrictions.
Staff recommended that companies treat COPPA as a minimum baseline for child protections—“the floor, not the ceiling”—and add safeguards. Recommendations included straightforward ways for parents or guardians to access and delete children’s information, and more protective defaults and limits on data collection, use, sharing and retention for teens. These are recommendations in a staff report, not new statutory requirements.
Rank #4
What the FTC recommended
The report urges Congress to enact comprehensive federal privacy legislation and recommends that companies:
- Collect only the information needed for a stated purpose.
- Set clear retention periods and effective deletion rules.
- Limit sharing with affiliates and third parties.
- Make privacy policies understandable.
- Reduce risks from advertising involving sensitive data.
- Give people clearer information and more control over automated decision systems, backed by stronger testing and monitoring.
- Strengthen child and teen protections, including more protective defaults for teens.
Staff also recommended antitrust scrutiny when data practices or acquisitions may harm competition. The FTC announcement summarizes the recommendations, while the full report provides the detailed analysis.
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Did the FTC say the companies broke the law?
No. This was a staff report based on responses and other materials, not a court judgment or an enforcement decision finding that each named company violated the law. The Commission’s 5–0 vote issued the report; it did not turn its recommendations into law. The report expressly says that a failure to follow a recommendation does not necessarily mean a company engaged in an unfair or deceptive practice.
Accordingly, its findings should be read as staff’s assessment of the material reviewed and the practices reported for the period examined. They should not be treated as proof that all nine companies used every practice in the same way, or as a description of each company’s current practices.
How to read the report’s numbers
The report names nine respondents and focuses on 2019–2020 evidence. It also cites contextual estimates from Our World in Data: U.S. adult social-media use rose from 5% in 2005 to 79% in 2019, and one in three people worldwide used social media by 2019. Those figures describe the growth of social-media use; they are not measurements of surveillance, compliance or the prevalence of a specific data practice. The FTC materials do not provide a single aggregate dollar estimate of the nine companies’ monetization or a prevalence rate for each practice.
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