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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Kochava, a mobile app analytics provider, for allegedly illegally selling precise geolocation data obtained from hundreds of millions of consumers' mobile devices.

Geolocation data can be used to track the movements of individuals' visits to reproductive health clinics, places of worship, domestic violence shelters, addiction recovery facilities, and other sensitive locations.

In a complaint, the Commission alleged that Kochava violated Section 5 of the FTC, which prohibits deceptive and unfair business practices that will likely cause substantial injury to consumers.

The FTC claimed that Kochava's practice of selling sensitive geolocation enables others to track and identify individuals, exposing them to threats of discrimination, job loss,  stalking, stigma, and even physical violence.

The Commission noted that the mobile app analytics provider "lacks meaningful controls over who accesses its location data feed." On the other hand, consumers typically do not have knowledge about who collected their location data and how it is being used.

Data brokers like Kochava could sell consumer' location data multiple times to companies including those that they have never heard of and never interacted with

"Consumers have no insight into how this data is used – they do not, for example, typically know or understand that the information collected about them can be used to track and map their past movements and that inferences about them and their behaviors will be drawn from this information. Consumers are therefore unable to take reasonable steps to avoid the above-described injuries," according to the FTC.

FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine said,

“Where consumers seek out health care, receive counseling, or celebrate their faith is private information that shouldn’t be sold to the highest bidder. The FTC is taking Kochava to court to protect people’s privacy and halt the sale of their sensitive geolocation information.”

One of the FTC's primary priorities is protecting sensitive consumer information including geolocation and health data. Recently, the Commission announced that it is exploring rules to root out harmful commercial surveillance practices that collect, analyze, and profit from people's information.