WASHINGTON—A data-marketing and analytics company has sued the Federal Trade Commission, saying the agency is wrongly threatening to sue it for marketing geolocation data that might be used to track consumer visits to sensitive locations such as abortion clinics.
The lawsuit by Kochava Inc. was filed on Friday in U.S. District Court in Idaho, where the company is based.
The FTC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The commission announced last week that it would begin considering rules to protect the privacy of a range of consumer data.
The Kochava case represents an early salvo in what could be a lengthy battle over the privacy of some online healthcare data.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and leaving the question of abortion’s legality to the states.
In response, President Biden issued an executive order encouraging the FTC to take new actions to protect consumers’ privacy when they seek information about reproductive health.
Kochava’s lawsuit says that in recent weeks, the FTC sent Kochava a proposed complaint for permanent injunction that alleges the company has engaged in unfair or deceptive practices.
According to the lawsuit, the FTC claims Kochava’s data makes it possible “to track consumers to sensitive locations, such as therapists’ offices, addiction recovery centers, medical facilities, and women’s reproductive health clinics.”
Abortion is one of the services commonly offered at reproductive health clinics.
Kochava said in a statement on Monday that the federal agency’s threatened lawsuit against it is a “manipulative attempt…to give the appearance that it is protecting consumer privacy despite being based on completely false pretenses.”
Kochava said it has recently introduced a new capability in its service that is aimed at improving consumer privacy, a privacy block that removes health services location data from its marketplace, and that the FTC doesn’t understand how its business works.
The company said it believes the FTC hoped to pressure it into a settlement to set a precedent in the industry.
In another action related to the Supreme Court ruling, the Justice Department earlier this month filed a lawsuit challenging Idaho’s near total ban on abortion.
Write to John D. McKinnon at [email protected]
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Appeared in the August 16, 2022, print edition as ‘FTC Sued In Dispute On Health Privacy.’
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