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Today, in what could only be described as a political stunt, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused us of not adequately protecting people\u2019s privacy based on events that occurred and were disclosed years ago and an assessment which looked at just the first six months of a 20-year agreement. None of these issues warrant the drastic changes the FTC is seeking just three years into our decades-long agreement\u2013and that the FTC lacks unilateral authority to impose. We have not violated the agreement and operate an industry-leading privacy program.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The timing is striking. These events occurred years ago, and we continuously update the FTC, yet today\u2019s action comes without any opportunity for us to address their concerns. In fact, this action was brought just before an independent assessor was scheduled to update them on our compliance work and program enhancements we made over the past two years \u2014 y<\/span>et the FTC chose to proceed without waiting to hear the results of that work<\/span>. The action also comes after the Commision lost its bipartisan membership, and extraordinarily, even one of the remaining <\/span>Democratic<\/span><\/i> FTC Commissioners has already publicly questioned the FTC\u2019s authority for the relief it is seeking.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We are focused on working productively with the agency to protect peoples\u2019 privacy, but such gamesmanship suggests an agency more focused on getting headlines than protecting Americans\u2019 privacy<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s be clear about what the FTC is trying to do: usurp the authority of Congress to set industry-wide standards and instead single out one American company while allowing Chinese companies, like TikTok, to operate without constraint on American soil. FTC Chair Lina Khan\u2019s insistence on using any measure \u2014 however baseless \u2014 to antagonize American business has reached a new low.<\/span><\/p>\n Privacy has been and remains our priority. We work with the FTC, not only in the interest of being extremely transparent with them but also to ensure that we\u2019re engaging with them regularly as we work to protect peoples\u2019 privacy and constantly improve our program. We have fully cooperated with the Assessor in its continuous monitoring of our program, as they have recognized, and we cooperate fully with the FTC in responding to their inquiries about the Order.<\/span><\/p>\n Pursuing actions like this with little or no engagement with companies about what their concerns are and without any indication of non-compliance before seeking to unilaterally reopen a negotiated Order, sends a chilling message to all American businesses <\/span>about how to work with the FTC productively on these very important issues. <\/span>We have spent vast resources building and implementing an industry-leading privacy program under the terms of our FTC agreement and will continue to prioritize our work to improve it because privacy isn\u2019t something that is ever \u201cdone\u201d for us, it\u2019s part of what we do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We will vigorously fight this action and expect to prevail.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nThe FTC\u2019s Latest Action Ignores Key Facts<\/h2>\n
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