Fitbit, an online service that allows users to track their exercise habits, found itself faced with a different set of fireworks during the 2011 Fourth of July weekend when some users discovered that their sexual activity was being broadcast to the public. The company had made all reported data visible to everyone by default without considering the full scope of “exercise data” that it allowed users to include. Although FitBit “pulled a quickie” by making activity reports private for all new and existing users and even contacting search engines to try to remove results, the damage was already done.

MeetMe was met with a barrage of bad press and sued by the City of San Francisco over its collection of location information from teenaged users. The City alleged that MeetMe used a “tangled web of ambiguous and misleading statements” to hide that it was keeping and broadcasting location information on its users. MeetMe was forced to settle the case, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the City, and promise to limit the data it revealed about its users.

Yelp was investigated by the FTC, fined, and ordered to destroy its records after improperly collecting information from young users. The company had collected information without parental consent, including name, email, and location, from young users of its mobile app even after those users provided a birthday that showed they were under 13. Along with the fine, the FTC also required Yelp to destroy the information it had collected from those users and to submit a report showing how the company would comply with the law.