The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined the InMobi mobile advertising network $950,000 in civil penalties for tracking the location of hundreds of millions of consumers without consent.
The company tracked consumers in an attempt to serve up targeted ads by collecting information about the WiFi networks connected to or within range of the consumer's device even if the consumer had restricted an application's access to location API, according to FTC court documents filed June 22.
This method allowed InMobi to track the consumer's location regardless of the application developer's intent to include geo-targeted ads in the application and regardless of the consumer's location settings, the documents said.
In response to the FTC investigation, InMobi has since modified its location tracking practices and no longer tracks consumer location without permission.
The firm also agreed to delete all of the information it collected from children and from adults who didn't provide consent.
