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There’s a phrase about the personal information collection practices of free digital services that sell ads, including Facebook and weather apps: If you don’t pay for the product, joyful is the product.

But sometimes you can pay for a product. and be product.

Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization advocacy group published for children and families report This week it found that most of America’s popular streaming services and TV streaming tools like Netflix, Roku, and Disney+ don’t meet the group’s minimum requirements for privacy and security practices. The only exception was Apple.

we used to corporate arms race to monitor our every mouse click and credit card swipe. But what’s surprising from the group’s report is that out-of-pocket streaming entertainment products have some of the data habits of sites like Facebook and Google, which in turn make money by renting out our data for ads.

“This should be a wake-up call to streaming platforms,” James P. Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, told me. “These platforms can and should do better, and I think they will.”

The organization said broadcast companies could do more to keep data they collect from American households to themselves, make exceptions to information practices to better protect children, and offer more assurance that people’s data won’t be used to lightning strike customers. are entered into files compiled by advertisements or data intermediaries all over the internet.

Researchers Previously analyzed the data habits of some streaming products. What Common Sense Media did with this latest report was cleverly comprehensive. It reviewed the privacy policies of 10 online video services like HBO Max and five streaming devices, including Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV. The organization has also set up computer systems to track where digital information from streaming video applications or devices goes.

Common Sense Media found that most of the companies in its analysis can use information about what people are doing on their services to tailor ads to customers online or let other companies do the same. For example, he was able to see many of the streaming companies transfer data to the advertising businesses of Amazon and Google.

Some streaming companies, including Netflix, say they usually don’t let other companies know what we’re watching in over-session on a Friday night. Some others in the analysis leave open the possibility that information about the information we track may be used for targeted advertising or other purposes.

Data from streaming companies can also end up with companies compiling tons of information like what brand of toothpaste you buy from the store and what you do on your phone. Common Sense Media said its efforts to offer customers informed consent were overly complex. For example, the organization said Amazon is asking people on a Fire streaming device to click 25 policies to use the device, plus two more to use the Alexa voice assistant.

The organization promotes consumer privacy principles, but Apple’s does not always provide on stated ideals.had stronger protection than the others studied in the Apple TV+ streaming video service and the TV connector device Apple TV.

(Apple helps fund a Common Sense Media news literacy program for schools and is among the companies that license the organization’s ratings and reviews. Common Sense Media told me it had nothing to do with privacy reviews.)

The collection or use of our data is not always harmful. Streaming companies use people’s information to help us reset a forgotten password and make sure we can watch Hulu when switching from a smartphone to a TV set.

The problem Common Sense Media highlights is that Americans, with limited exceptions, You don’t know what companies are doing with all the information they collect about us. Often we have to rely on legal documents. presenting an illusion of control and consider hypothetical risks what could go wrong in the wild with our personal information.

This is the case for Americans insecurity technology companies and concerns about what happens to our personal data, but Steyer said there’s a silver lining in our collective concern: Companies and politicians know that more Americans care about information privacy.

“I am incredibly pleased to see the fundamental change in public perception and awareness, and it will drive both political change and industry change,” Steyer said. “The tide is turning.”

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Before you go …

• Stamp of Theranos: My colleague Erin Griffith writes that start-ups have some female founders—particularly those in the life sciences, biotechnology, and healthcare. Have to compare with Elizabeth Holmes, the blood test startup Theranos closed in 2018 after a reporter’s investigation questioned its claims about the company. Holmes will soon face fraud charges.

• Efficient and respectful conversations! On Facebook! The Washington Post writes about a Facebook group with 70,000 members called Vaccine Talk. A forum for civic and evidence-based discussions about vaccines. The group has 25 moderators and admins to follow strict rules against submitting posts and medical advice or making scientific claims without evidence.

• It’s hard to be green in consumer electronics: The protocol examines why it is difficult for smartphone, TV, and other electronic device manufacturers to produce their products in two articles. in a more environmentally sustainable way. This may require major changes in production and shoppers’ expectations enabling companies and people to adopt more expensive, longer-lasting devices.

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