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Here is the actual order (PDF warning): https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/6b-orders-file-special-reports-social-media-service-providers/6bs_ord

Here is the actual order (PDF warning): https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/6b-orders-file-special-reports-social-media-service-providers/6bs_order_os_final.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/6b-orders... I would encourage everyone to read it. My personal take is that this is a ridiculous amount of homework to do in 45 days, and is essentially the FTC asking for not only these companies' "secret sauce" but also their confidential bookkeeping. I would be astounded if none of them challenged this order. For example, requirement 12.d.: "Submit all documents related to the Company's strategies or plans, including but not limited to research and development efforts." It is not clear the FTC has this kind of authority to essentially demand "what are your trade secrets and future business plans?"

gist 6y ago
I will say maybe not bad the deadline. Why? Well my theory is that legal fees and help would be higher (that's right higher) if a longer time period was given. Seems counter intuitive but that's my way of looking at it. (I guess in short maybe a version of 'work expands to fill the time available for completion something like that). That said I don't feel bad for these companies at all. They have plenty of resources and plenty of money. And no reason they can't ask for and receive extensions of the time due there is no 'train leaving' at that time the info needs to board.
- akersten 6y ago
  The 45-day thing is a minor tickle, I shouldn't have lead with it. My point is that to me it feels like this Order is a huge overreach of authority, and whether you personally do or don't feel sympathy for a certain company does not change what the government should and should not be able to ask of a company in the general case. Reading the document, the demands are wide and reaching. I would like to know how much of what they demand is actually part of the FTC's authority for what they are allowed to require companies to provide.
  - Despegar 6y ago
    It's absolutely not an "overreach." The FTC is actually starting to do their job after decades of letting industries consolidate. Congress should increase their budget so they can do more of it.
    - akersten 6y ago
      Frankly, the order is one step short of "copy your Shared drive to a hard disk and mail it to us, we'll take care of the rest." I'm genuinely interested in what US Code permits the FTC to ask for such a trove of company information and strategy. My suspicion is that they're reaching. We can talk about whether we feel it's an overreach or not - you clearly feel the opposite of me - but I hope someone can chime in with the actual mandate or code.
      - cj 6y ago
        “A Brief Overview of the Federal Trade Commission's Investigative, Law Enforcement, and Rulemaking Authority” https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do/enforcement-authority https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do/enforcement-authori...
      - Despegar 6y ago
        It's in the press release: >The FTC is issuing the orders under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which authorizes the Commission to conduct wide-ranging studies that do not have a specific law enforcement purpose.
        akersten 6y ago
        My read of Section 6(b) (from [0]) is that it requires the FTC to prescribe specific questions for a company to answer: > the Commission may prescribe annual or special, or both annual and special, reports or answers in writing to specific questions I do not see how the requirements of part 12 of this Order are "specific questions," in fact they are quite broad to me. But I suppose that's for a lawyer to decide. [0]: https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/statutes/federal-trade-commission-act/ftc_act_incorporatingus_safe_web_act.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/statutes/f... (Control+F "Sec. 6")
pjc50 6y ago
How much of that can just be copied from investor relations documents, and things already submitted to the SEC?
nalekberov 6y ago
They have billions in cash, but they can't afford to hire enough people to finish this task in 45 days? I believe Requirement 12.d is not necessarily about "what are your trade secrets and future business plans?". Somehow FTC should have clear picture of "WHAT-WHY-WHEN" in order to come to conclusion. We use digital social networking services every day, we still have nearly zero knowledge of how do their platforms actually work.
- gipp 6y ago
  Hiring people on a 45-day notice would only make it take longer...
  - nalekberov 6y ago
    No it would not.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - arjunbanker 6y ago
      Training itself can take 6 weeks+
      - nalekberov 6y ago
        Out of what experience you came to that conclusion may I ask? We are talking about experts here not newbies.
        sanderjd 6y ago
        Experts in what? I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
btilly 6y ago
I also strongly encourage people to read the dissent at https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/1584154/dissenting_statement_of_commissioner_noah_joshua_phillips_regarding_social_media_and_video_streaming.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements.... Of particular interest is that the reason why only 9 companies were targeted is that if they had targeted 10 or more, they would have have a mandatory review under the paperwork reduction act. A review that would have almost certainly said they couldn't ask for most of what they asked for in the way that they asked for it. On this logic and this logic alone, companies like Apple, Gab, GroupMe, LinkedIn, Parler, Rumble, and Tumblr were not targeted. Think about that.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  Surely there is no way that the 10th largest social media platform would abuse their market position! /s
ineedasername 6y ago
Revealing all R&D is too much, but I don't think in general that it's too little time to answer. They would of course know the answers to questions like the one you cited. Otherwise, from the PDF: 1-6 mostly seem fine. Q7 is secret sauce Q8 doesn't really seem relevant to how personal data is used Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce. Q11 I'm not sure what the relevance of this is Q12 and most of Q13 is secret sauce Q14-20 are what I think are really relevant And so on...
- viraptor 6y ago
  > Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce. I wonder what's really the limit in Q10a. For example companies will have huge recommendation models built, likely very automated without manually assigned labels. If they never ask for "“yes,” “no” for whether the natural Person is of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin", but one of the automated recommendation dimensions is close to 1:1 match for that question, would they have to disclose that? (i.e. give statistics per-dimension) This applies to the rest of Q10 too. 1000 top attribute values? Does "around vector (0,0,0.3,0.9,....)" count? Because barely anyone asks explicitly for the real user attributes anymore.
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    It’s wild to me that regulators have (for all intents and purposes) caught up with tech. Noone is claiming the internet is a series of tubes. But tech’s swing towards AI-weighted vector graphs seems to be out of the regulator’s view. It’s almost like they are back at square one again.
    - ggggtez 6y ago
      I think both assertions are wrong: Regulators still have no real conception of how any of this technology works, and you can watch the congressional hearings with Facebook for evidence that mostly they didn't really have a clue what to do once they had him in the room, or how exactly Facebook even makes money. The court system only confirmed your rights to use webcrawlers within the last year, and webcrawlers have been around since the start of Google. And as for the series of tubes guy, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He clearly still didn't have a good grasp on the subject, but I don't think he was being literal.
HexagonalKitten 6y ago
> It is not clear the FTC has this kind of authority to essentially demand "what are your trade secrets and future business plans?" They do seem to have the legal authority to make life very difficult for and potentially restrict entire actions of these companies. I imagine that if you refused to answer, and that your right to do so was likely to be upheld, that they'd just do what they were going to do before they asked the questions. Picture this like a chance to talk your way out of trouble. Saying the minimum probably won't be enough.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  And just like the real world, never try to talk your way out of trouble. Never talk to police, remain silent, and get a lawyer. The police aren’t trying to throw you a bone, they are trying to get you to selfincriminate
lle-bout 6y ago
I don't think it's more important to protect private profits than ensure people's right are respected when their data is being processed. Moreover, I don't think the answers will be made public so what's the problem with being held accountable to a government authority? That's just normal in this case. It's more than relevant to get to know a company business strategy when their business model is essentially based on user data.
- cjfd 6y ago
  Being held to government authority is indeed normal. Being held accountable to government micromanagement and/or spying is not. The normal way for government to handle this stuff would be to issue a law saying that it is forbidden to spy on citizens and if you do spy on citizens you go to jail. The government going over all paperwork of a company is such a strange activity.
  - methodsignature 6y ago
    And how do you research for the formulation of such a law? Not really trying to defend anyone here with not much info, just it seems that asking parties for information about how the soup is made so you know how to regulate the making is pretty common, no?
    - emteycz 6y ago
      A law that assumes things that are not available is evidently wrong. A judge will soon tell you that.
- emteycz 6y ago
  The government authority is a human. That's why it's a problem. People aren't perfect and might speak about what they saw. And no, it's not normal to be required to have a business plan, much less disclose it.
IanSanders 6y ago
> PDF warning It's 250KB, orders of magnitude smaller than an average website!

gist 6y ago

I will say maybe not bad the deadline. Why? Well my theory is that legal fees and help would be higher (that's right higher) if a longer time period was given. Seems counter intuitive but that's my way of looking at it. (I guess in short maybe a version of 'work expands to fill the time available for completion something like that). That said I don't feel bad for these companies at all. They have plenty of resources and plenty of money. And no reason they can't ask for and receive extensions of the time due there is no 'train leaving' at that time the info needs to board.

akersten 6y ago
The 45-day thing is a minor tickle, I shouldn't have lead with it. My point is that to me it feels like this Order is a huge overreach of authority, and whether you personally do or don't feel sympathy for a certain company does not change what the government should and should not be able to ask of a company in the general case. Reading the document, the demands are wide and reaching. I would like to know how much of what they demand is actually part of the FTC's authority for what they are allowed to require companies to provide.
- Despegar 6y ago
  It's absolutely not an "overreach." The FTC is actually starting to do their job after decades of letting industries consolidate. Congress should increase their budget so they can do more of it.
  - akersten 6y ago
    Frankly, the order is one step short of "copy your Shared drive to a hard disk and mail it to us, we'll take care of the rest." I'm genuinely interested in what US Code permits the FTC to ask for such a trove of company information and strategy. My suspicion is that they're reaching. We can talk about whether we feel it's an overreach or not - you clearly feel the opposite of me - but I hope someone can chime in with the actual mandate or code.
    - cj 6y ago
      “A Brief Overview of the Federal Trade Commission's Investigative, Law Enforcement, and Rulemaking Authority” https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do/enforcement-authority https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/what-we-do/enforcement-authori...
    - Despegar 6y ago
      It's in the press release: >The FTC is issuing the orders under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which authorizes the Commission to conduct wide-ranging studies that do not have a specific law enforcement purpose.
      - akersten 6y ago
        My read of Section 6(b) (from [0]) is that it requires the FTC to prescribe specific questions for a company to answer: > the Commission may prescribe annual or special, or both annual and special, reports or answers in writing to specific questions I do not see how the requirements of part 12 of this Order are "specific questions," in fact they are quite broad to me. But I suppose that's for a lawyer to decide. [0]: https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/statutes/federal-trade-commission-act/ftc_act_incorporatingus_safe_web_act.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/statutes/f... (Control+F "Sec. 6")

pjc50 6y ago

How much of that can just be copied from investor relations documents, and things already submitted to the SEC?

nalekberov 6y ago

They have billions in cash, but they can't afford to hire enough people to finish this task in 45 days? I believe Requirement 12.d is not necessarily about "what are your trade secrets and future business plans?". Somehow FTC should have clear picture of "WHAT-WHY-WHEN" in order to come to conclusion. We use digital social networking services every day, we still have nearly zero knowledge of how do their platforms actually work.

gipp 6y ago
Hiring people on a 45-day notice would only make it take longer...
- nalekberov 6y ago
  No it would not.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - arjunbanker 6y ago
    Training itself can take 6 weeks+
    - nalekberov 6y ago
      Out of what experience you came to that conclusion may I ask? We are talking about experts here not newbies.
      - sanderjd 6y ago
        Experts in what? I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

btilly 6y ago

I also strongly encourage people to read the dissent at https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/1584154/dissenting_statement_of_commissioner_noah_joshua_phillips_regarding_social_media_and_video_streaming.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements.... Of particular interest is that the reason why only 9 companies were targeted is that if they had targeted 10 or more, they would have have a mandatory review under the paperwork reduction act. A review that would have almost certainly said they couldn't ask for most of what they asked for in the way that they asked for it. On this logic and this logic alone, companies like Apple, Gab, GroupMe, LinkedIn, Parler, Rumble, and Tumblr were not targeted. Think about that.

ggggtez 6y ago
Surely there is no way that the 10th largest social media platform would abuse their market position! /s

ineedasername 6y ago

Revealing all R&D is too much, but I don't think in general that it's too little time to answer. They would of course know the answers to questions like the one you cited. Otherwise, from the PDF: 1-6 mostly seem fine. Q7 is secret sauce Q8 doesn't really seem relevant to how personal data is used Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce. Q11 I'm not sure what the relevance of this is Q12 and most of Q13 is secret sauce Q14-20 are what I think are really relevant And so on...

viraptor 6y ago
> Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce. I wonder what's really the limit in Q10a. For example companies will have huge recommendation models built, likely very automated without manually assigned labels. If they never ask for "“yes,” “no” for whether the natural Person is of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin", but one of the automated recommendation dimensions is close to 1:1 match for that question, would they have to disclose that? (i.e. give statistics per-dimension) This applies to the rest of Q10 too. 1000 top attribute values? Does "around vector (0,0,0.3,0.9,....)" count? Because barely anyone asks explicitly for the real user attributes anymore.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  It’s wild to me that regulators have (for all intents and purposes) caught up with tech. Noone is claiming the internet is a series of tubes. But tech’s swing towards AI-weighted vector graphs seems to be out of the regulator’s view. It’s almost like they are back at square one again.
  - ggggtez 6y ago
    I think both assertions are wrong: Regulators still have no real conception of how any of this technology works, and you can watch the congressional hearings with Facebook for evidence that mostly they didn't really have a clue what to do once they had him in the room, or how exactly Facebook even makes money. The court system only confirmed your rights to use webcrawlers within the last year, and webcrawlers have been around since the start of Google. And as for the series of tubes guy, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He clearly still didn't have a good grasp on the subject, but I don't think he was being literal.

HexagonalKitten 6y ago

> It is not clear the FTC has this kind of authority to essentially demand "what are your trade secrets and future business plans?" They do seem to have the legal authority to make life very difficult for and potentially restrict entire actions of these companies. I imagine that if you refused to answer, and that your right to do so was likely to be upheld, that they'd just do what they were going to do before they asked the questions. Picture this like a chance to talk your way out of trouble. Saying the minimum probably won't be enough.

s1artibartfast 6y ago
And just like the real world, never try to talk your way out of trouble. Never talk to police, remain silent, and get a lawyer. The police aren’t trying to throw you a bone, they are trying to get you to selfincriminate

lle-bout 6y ago

I don't think it's more important to protect private profits than ensure people's right are respected when their data is being processed. Moreover, I don't think the answers will be made public so what's the problem with being held accountable to a government authority? That's just normal in this case. It's more than relevant to get to know a company business strategy when their business model is essentially based on user data.

cjfd 6y ago
Being held to government authority is indeed normal. Being held accountable to government micromanagement and/or spying is not. The normal way for government to handle this stuff would be to issue a law saying that it is forbidden to spy on citizens and if you do spy on citizens you go to jail. The government going over all paperwork of a company is such a strange activity.
- methodsignature 6y ago
  And how do you research for the formulation of such a law? Not really trying to defend anyone here with not much info, just it seems that asking parties for information about how the soup is made so you know how to regulate the making is pretty common, no?
  - emteycz 6y ago
    A law that assumes things that are not available is evidently wrong. A judge will soon tell you that.
emteycz 6y ago
The government authority is a human. That's why it's a problem. People aren't perfect and might speak about what they saw. And no, it's not normal to be required to have a business plan, much less disclose it.

IanSanders 6y ago

> PDF warning It's 250KB, orders of magnitude smaller than an average website!