“Even though several of the ISPs promise not to sell consumers personal data, they allow it to be used, transferred, and monetized by others.”

Over the last few years the justified fixation on the bad behavior of Google, Amazon, Facebook and other Silicon Valley giants has let the abuses of the telecom sector fly under the radar. But a new FTC report showcases how when it comes to consumer privacy, broadband providers are every bit as terrible as you thought they were.

The new FTC report studied the privacy practices of six unnamed broadband ISPs and their advertising arms, and found that the companies routinely collect an ocean of consumer location, browsing, and behavioral data. They then share this data with dodgy middlemen via elaborate business arrangements that often aren’t adequately disclosed to broadband consumers.

“Even though several of the ISPs promise not to sell consumers personal data, they allow it to be used, transferred, and monetized by others and hide disclosures about such practices in fine print of their privacy policies,” the FTC report said.

The FTC also found that while many ISPs provide consumers tools allowing them to opt out of granular data collection, those tools are cumbersome to use—when they work at all. 

“Many of the ISPs also claim to offer consumers choices about how their data is used and allow them to access such data,” the FTC said. “The FTC found, however, that many of these companies often make it difficult for consumers to exercise such choices and sometimes even nudge them to share even more information.”

ISPs often provide privacy-specific website portals proclaiming to provide users with a wide variety of opt out options but these choices are often “illusory,” the FTC found. 

The agency’s report also found that while ISPs promise to only keep consumer data for as long as needed for “business purposes,” the definition of what constitutes a “business purpose” is extremely broad and varies among broadband providers and wireless carriers.

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