FTC Bans Data Broker Kochava for Selling Location Pings from Hundreds of Millions of Phones

They Sold Where You Pray, Heal, and Hide

For years, an Idaho data broker quietly packaged the precise movements of hundreds of millions of phones and sold them on the open market. In May 2026, the federal government finally shut it down.

The FTC Order

On May 7, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission announced a ban prohibiting Kochava Inc. and its subsidiary Collective Data Solutions from selling, licensing, or sharing sensitive location data without consumers' affirmative express consent. The order settled a case the FTC first filed in August 2022.

What the Data Revealed

Kochava's feeds didn't just show that a phone moved — they revealed where. The FTC documented data exposing visits to mental health clinics, addiction recovery facilities, reproductive health clinics, houses of worship, and domestic-abuse and homeless shelters. Each of these is a 'sensitive location' whose disclosure can endanger or stigmatize the person being tracked.

Sold to Anyone with $25,000

Access wasn't restricted to vetted clients. For a roughly $25,000 subscription fee, buyers could pull the data through a feed listed on the Amazon Web Services Marketplace — putting the raw location histories of millions of Americans within reach of essentially any paying customer.

A Pattern of Enforcement

Kochava was not alone. In 2026 the FTC also moved against Venntel, Mobilewalla, X-Mode Social, and others, establishing that selling location data to the government is an unfair practice under Section 5 of the FTC Act. The Kochava order forces the company to build a consent program, let consumers withdraw permission, and delete retained data.