Top FTC official warns companies on data

Samuel Levine, director of the Federal Trade Commission's bureau of consumer protection, said the agency won't hesitate to sue companies that play fast and loose with customers' data. Levine also warned companies that operate under FTC consent decrees — which includes Twitter — that "there's no pause button" on such agreements. Levine is playing a key role in shaping the agency's potential new rules on "commercial surveillance" — which includes the targeted advertising that drives so many online business models. Those rules also focus on data security, and privacy advocates see them as a key means to restrain industry abuses in the absence of a federal online privacy law. The agency could issue them in 2023. Levine said the FTC's consumer protection bureau will keep working with its bureau of competition, which is in charge of antitrust cases, to gauge where a lack of competition may be affecting consumer privacy and other experiences online.