Allegations that Amazon has been pilfering sensitive consumer data

"Amazon and its advertising division are sued. The allegations are that the company collected personal and location data from third-party mobile apps without users' explicit consent.

Geolocation data collection

A lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court seeks class-action status. 

The lawsuit, filed by Felix Kolotinsky, a resident of San Mateo, California, as a plaintiff, alleges that Amazon and Amazon Advertising secretly tracked and sold sensitive movement and location data of Californians.

F. Kolotinsky raised the issue of the Amazon Ads SDK, a software library provided by the e-commerce giant to third-party app developers for displaying advertising. At the same time, it allegedly collects user data.

Among the data collected is time-stamped geolocation data, which reveals where the user lives, works and the places they visit most often.

The location data collected reveals sensitive information about each user, such as their religious affiliation, sexual orientation and health status.

This huge amount of data allows Amazon and its advertising partners to build a detailed profile of each user.

The lawsuit is based on California law, which prohibits secret data collection and unauthorised access to personal information. 

Concerns about data collection have been prevalent for years

Technology companies such as Amazon, Google and Meta offer software development kits (SDKs) so that developers can monetise their apps without having to re-create traditional code templates. 

However, the price of this convenience is that the SDK developer can gain access to valuable data in addition to the app developer itself. Unfortunately, this information is often masked in the terms of use or not disclosed at all.

Concerns about the collection of data using third-party SDKs have been ongoing for years. This is a testament to the weakness of US state and federal privacy laws. 

However, last year the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action against data broker Mobilewalla and analytics company Gravy Analytics for similar data privacy concerns.

In discussing the issue, the FTC reiterated the claim made in the Amazon lawsuit that geolocation data shared for the purpose of targeting advertising could reveal visits to healthcare facilities, churches, trade unions, military facilities and other sensitive locations.