01:24 PM EDT, 09/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- (Updates with Google's ( GOOG ) responses in ninth paragraph.)

Many of the major social media and video streaming companies have engaged in surveillance of consumers to monetize their personal information and have failed to protect users online, especially teens and children, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday in a staff report.

The report is based on responses to orders issued in December 2020 to some of the biggest social media and video streaming services, including Twitch-owner Amazon.com ( AMZN ) , Meta Platforms ( META ) , Alphabet's (GOOG) YouTube ( GOOG ), X (formerly Twitter), Snap (SNAP), TikTok-owner ByteDance, Reddit ( RDDT ) , Discord, and WhatsApp.

"The report found that the companies collected and could indefinitely retain troves of data, including information from data brokers, and about users and non-users of their platforms," the FTC said. "The staff report further highlights that many companies engaged in broad data sharing that raises serious concerns regarding the adequacy of the companies' data handling controls and oversight."

Furthermore, based on the data collected, the companies maintained that no children were on their platforms because they did not allow children to create accounts nor were their services directed at children, the FTC said.

"The staff report noted that this was an apparent attempt to avoid liability under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act Rule," the FTC said. "The staff report found that the social media and video streaming services often treated teens the same as adult users, with most companies allowing teens on their platforms with no account restrictions."

Discord's head of public policy in the US and Canada told MT Newswires the FTC's report may confuse consumers and portray some platforms, such as Discord, inaccurately.

"The report lumps very different models into one bucket and paints a broad brush," Kate Sheerin told MT Newswires in an emailed response.

Sheerin said Discord's business model was "very different" from the other platforms and the real-time communications service did not run a formal digital advertising service at the time of the FTC's study.

"Google ( GOOG ) has the strictest privacy policies in our industry - we never sell people's personal information and we don't use sensitive information to serve ads. We prohibit ad personalization for users under 18 and we don't personalize ads to anyone watching 'made for kids content' on YouTube ( GOOG )," a Google ( GOOG ) spokesperson told MT Newswires.

The other aforementioned companies in the FTC's report did not immediately reply to requests for comment from MT Newswires.

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