On October 21, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered six large technology companies that operate payments systems in the United States — Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Square, and PayPal — to provide information about certain of their business practices. The agency seeks the information to help it better understand how these companies use personal payments data and manage data access to users so the Bureau can ensure adequate consumer protection.
The CFPB has now published request for comments, due December 6, to submit comments to inform the agency’s inquiry, which is generally about three areas:
- data harvesting and monetization,
- access restrictions and user choice,
- consumer protections, including protections from fraud and errors.