Kochava banned from selling consumers' private, sensitive location data
The company slices and dices intimate details of Americans' lives
The Federal Trade Commission will prohibit data broker Kochava from selling, sharing or disclosing sensitive location data without consumers’ affirmative express consent to settle allegations the companies sold location data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that could be used to trace the movements of individuals.
The FTC sued Idaho-based Kochava in August 2022 alleging that its collection, use and disclosure of precise location data invaded consumers’ privacy by revealing their movements, including visits to sensitive locations such as health facilities and places of worship.
Kochava is a mobile advertising and data analytics company based in Idaho that specializes in tracking how people use apps and respond to digital ads. It operates in the “ad tech” and data broker industry, helping marketers measure whether an ad led someone to install an app, visit a store, or make a purchase.
Consumers’ privacy at risk
In recent years, Kochava and its subsidiary Collective Data Solutions (CDS) became much better known because of privacy lawsuits and investigations over its handling of cellphone location data. The Federal Trade Commission accused the company of selling highly detailed geolocation information tied to millions of mobile devices — data that could allegedly be used to track visits to places such as:
reproductive health clinics
houses of worship
addiction treatment centers
domestic violence shelters
The FTC argued that this exposed consumers to risks including stalking, discrimination, and harassment.
The case became one of the most closely watched privacy fights in the U.S. data broker industry because it tested whether the government could treat the sale of sensitive location data as an “unfair practice” under consumer protection law.
In the settlement with the FTC, Kochava and CDS agreed to be barred from selling sensitive location data without explicit consumer consent and would have to implement stronger controls, deletion policies, and consumer opt-out rights.
More broadly, Kochava is part of the largely invisible ecosystem of companies that collect and trade data generated by smartphones, apps, advertising systems, and online activity. Much of this industry revolves around “mobile advertising IDs” — identifiers attached to phones that allow advertisers and analytics firms to follow behavior across apps and locations.