Eshoo, Booker Back Calls for FTC Ban on Targeted Ads

The FTC should ban surveillance advertising due to its “overwhelming” societal harm, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., wrote the agency Wednesday, supporting a petition for rulemaking from Accountable Tech (see 2112280054). The petition requests a rule banning “surveillance advertising” as an “unfair method of competition.” Harms “vastly outweigh” the benefits, Eshoo and Booker wrote: “Surveillance advertising has been called the Internet’s Original Sin and a ‘time bomb at the heart of the Internet’ that could harm society on the scale of the subprime mortgage crisis.” The FTC confirms it received the letter, emailed a spokesperson Friday, declining further comment.