Privacy groups blast US FTC as digital ad industry ‘lapdog’

The Federal Trade Commission building is seen in Washington on March 4, 2012. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/Files

Leading privacy watchdog groups lashed out at the US Federal Trade Commission for siding with the advertising industry as part of a Trump administration initiative to update consumer-data protections. 

The organisations, which include the Consumer Federation of America and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told FTC Chairman Joe Simons in a letter Nov 26 that the agency relied on a “self-serving study” by the ad industry to warn against a policy in which consumers are opted out of online advertising by default.