U.S. companies charged with violating safe harbor.

• Position: LEG/REG - Brief article

Thirty U.S. companies have been called out by the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) for allegedly violating the Safe Harbor agreement between the EU and the United States.

CDD recently filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking it to investigate the data brokers and data management firms for collecting, using, and sharing data about European residents in a manner inconsistent with the Safe Harbor framework.

"[The] companies are relying on exceedingly brief, vague, or obtuse descriptions of their data collection practices, even though Safe Harbor requires meaningful transparency and candor," asserted CDD Executive Director Jeff Chester.

Some of the broad concerns CDD cited included 1) failure to provide "accurate and meaningful...