No way? Big Tech's 'lucrative surveillance' of everyone is terrible for privacy, freedom

The FTC’s 129-page report details how nine major social media and streaming platforms collect, retain, and monetize vast amounts of user and non-user data—often feeding it into AI models—with inadequate safeguards and limited user transparency or control, particularly for teenagers. The agency urges limits on data collection, elimination of invasive tracking, stronger user controls, and special treatment for teen data, concluding that self-regulation has failed and calling for comprehensive federal privacy legislation (while noting the American Privacy Rights Act remains stalled). Several companies responded, disputing or contextualizing the findings.