InMobi has agreed to pay $950,000 as part of a penalty The privacy settings on your phone don’t mean much if tech companies choose to ignore them. One major mobile advertiser allegedly did just that.The company InMobi was secretly tracking user locations, regardless of consent, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleged on Wednesday. The motive: to serve location-based ads over mobile apps.InMobi is headquartered in India and partners with thousands of apps to offer advertising. This gives the company access to 1.5 billion devices.Collecting user information to serve tailored ads is all too common, but InMobi did so through deception, the FTC alleged. The company stated it would only collect the location-based data if given permission, however, InMobi secretly collected it anyway, the agency said. InMobi also created a database that could guess a user’s whereabouts, even when the location-tracking function had been shut off, the FTC said.The company also allegedly tracked the locations of children, when promising not to do so. A U.S. privacy regulation requires companies collecting information about children to first gain the consent from their parents. “The case is the FTC’s first charging a mobile ad company with deception and with violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act,” the agency said in a blog post.InMobi has agreed to a settlement and will pay a US$950,000 fine. The company blamed a “technical error” for serving children with the targeted advertising.In no way was this “deliberate,” and the company notified the FTC as soon as the problem was discovered, InMobi said in an email.It also said that the company was only tracking users’ location without their permission in “certain instances.” The problems were corrected in last year’s fourth quarter, InMobi added.As part of the settlement, InMobi must delete all the information it illegally collected and operate a privacy program for the next 20 years to keep the company in line with regulations. It must also honor the user’s location privacy settings. Related content news analysis Companies are already feeling the pressure from upcoming US SEC cyber rules New Securities and Exchange Commission cyber incident reporting rules don't kick in until December, but experts say they highlight the need for greater collaboration between CISOs and the C-suite By Cynthia Brumfield Sep 28, 2023 6 mins Regulation Data Breach Financial Services Industry news UK data regulator warns that data breaches put abuse victims’ lives at risk The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has reprimanded seven organizations in the past 14 months for data breaches affecting victims of domestic abuse. By Michael Hill Sep 28, 2023 3 mins Electronic Health Records Data Breach Government news EchoMark releases watermarking solution to secure private communications, detect insider threats Enterprise-grade software embeds AI-driven, forensic watermarking in emails and documents to pinpoint potential insider risks By Michael Hill Sep 28, 2023 4 mins Communications Security Threat and Vulnerability Management Security Software news SpecterOps to use in-house approximation to test for global attack variations The new offering uses atomic tests and in-house approximation in purple team assessment to test all known techniques of an attack. By Shweta Sharma Sep 28, 2023 3 mins Penetration Testing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe