U.S. FTC considers crack down on commercial surveillance, data security practices

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday said it was considering adopting rules new rules to prohibit harmful commercial surveillance and lax data security.

The FTC is issuing an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking to address commercial surveillance, the "business of collecting, analyzing, and profiting from information about people." The FTC said companies are often incentivized "to collect vast troves of consumer information, only a small fraction of which consumers proactively share."

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter)