FTC orders Facebook, Amazon, and more to provide data on their use of personal information

The Federal Trade Commission has ordered a number of tech companies, including Facebook and Amazon, to provide information on how they collect users' personal data as part of a new inquiry.

The FTC announced Monday it's ordering nine companies to "provide data on how they collect, use, and present personal information, their advertising and user engagement practices, and how their practices affect children and teens." The orders were issued to Amazon, TikTok owner ByteDance, Discord, Facebook, Reddit, Snap, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube.

Three FTC commissioners said in a joint statement Monday that this study will "lift the hood on the social media and video streaming firms to carefully study their engines," per Bloomberg.

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"Policymakers and the public are in the dark about what social media and video streaming services do to capture and sell users' data and attention," the statement also said. "It is alarming that we still know so little about companies that know so much about us."

With this move, Axios reports the FTC is "using its authority to do wide-ranging studies for no specific law enforcement purpose," although Bloomberg notes that "the information can be used in future enforcement." The FTC said the companies have 45 days to respond to the orders. The move comes after the FTC and 48 state attorneys general recently sued Facebook, accusing the company of anticompetitive actions and asking a court to potentially "roll back" its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram.