A weight loss app now owned by the company formerly known as Weight Watchers collected data on kids under 13 in violation of children's privacy laws, according to a complaint unveiled Friday by the Federal Trade Commission.
Kurbo marketed itself as being "for use by children as young as eight," according to the FTC. For years, kids could use false birthdays showing they were old enough to sign up without parental permission and then revise their ages once they had accounts, the FTC said. The app allowed hundreds of kids under 13 to keep their accounts when they did so, the complaint said. The app also failed to provide complete notice to parents for several years about its data-collection practices for kids, and kept the data too long.
Kurbo and WW International (as Weight Watchers is now known) will have to "destroy any algorithms derived from the data, and pay a $1.5 million penalty" to settle the claims, the FTC announced.
The FTC has said in recent months it wants to target the heart of tech's products by forcing companies to give up the algorithms they build up through wrongdoing.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE