The US Federal Trade Commission has settled with community web site provider GeoCities Inc over charges that GeoCities failed to respect the privacy of individuals who supplied their personal information to it. GeoCities misled its customers, both children and adults, by not telling the truth about how it was using their personal information, said the director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, Jodie Bernstein, in a statement. Santa Monica, California-based GeoCities denies the charges but says it has come to an agreement with the FTC so as to settle matters in an expeditious way. With its successful IPO only two days old, GeoCities hastens to assure investors that complying with the terms of the FTC agreement won’t affect it in any materially adverse way. The FTC’s complaints focus on disclosure of personal information to third parties without individuals’ consent. Before people could set up their web sites on its servers, GeoCities required them to register, supplying personal information in mandatory and optional categories and specifying whether or not they want to receive marketing information from other companies. This information was assembled by GeoCities into a database. What the FTC alleges is that the optional information was then released to advertisers who used it to target members for solicitations to which they hadn’t given their consent. The FTC was also concerned about a GeoKidz area, run not by GeoCities itself but by third parties, who collected information from children. Under the terms of the settlement, GeoCities must now display a Privacy Notice prominently on its site. This notice is to specify exactly what information will be collected, why, to whom it will be disclosed and how people can get at their own data in order to review, correct or remove it. The FTC has also required GeoCities to obtain parental consent before taking information from children under 12.
