Anonymous 'ask me anything' chat app NGL ordered to knock it off targeting kids

The US Federal Trade Commission has thrown the book at NGL Labs and its founders for allegedly breaking a depressing amount of child internet safety law. NGL Labs, founded by Raj Vir and Joao Figueiredo, in December 2021 launched a chat app also called NGL that encouraged its users to say to others: "Ask me anything." As …

[Pascal Monett]

"While we believe"

I don't care what you believe. You have quite obviously constructed something that you intended to monetize, and you purposefully targeted teens who do not have the necessary experience to understand that you are nothing but snake oil scum.

I checked the PDF of the complaint. Sending messages to children saying "I know what you did" or "Are you single" ? Really ?

You should be strapped to a pole and whipped for forty lashes.

Disgusting.

[Dan 55]

Re: "While we believe"

Their only crime is they went a little too far. Meta knows how to push it as far as they can but no more. NGL sends clumsy notifications to raise engagement, Meta's apps are built entirely around getting users "engaged", TikTok even more so.

And of course Meta or TikTok will never charge end users directly and demand filthy money off them, which is apparently worse. If NGL just had a "enable this feature _{and sell my data}" toggle switch in settings then I bet there wouldn't have been half the uproar.

[Anonymous Coward]

fines are just another business cost

only jail time will do

[cookieMonster]

Utter fu€&ing scumbags

That is all

[Bendacious]

Go FTC

With all the articles on the Reg recently detailing how the Supreme Court has castrated federal regulators, it's nice to see that the FTC can still get the job done. Now they just need to upgrade from fixing small apps to fixing large social media companies. Before you ask, I am holding my breath...

*gasp*

[User McUser]

WTF is [u]p with all [the] square-bracket[s] in the quoted lines?

See title - did the guy write that way or is it just a LOT of editorial corrections?

[Bendacious]

Re: WTF is [u]p with all [the] square-bracket[s] in the quoted lines?

Looks to me like a small number of the brackets is El Reg trying the make the comments more readable but the majority is El Reg being pedantic about these idiot’s terrible grammar. It’s unusual to see a journalist adding a comma [,] to a quote. I suspect the author may not have much respect for these scumbags.

One of the (uncorrected) messages was:

“ew messages kinda a lie though right”

[Alistair]

Wait, hold on.

This legal entity is still operating as a business? I suspect the regulators have already had their teeth pulled.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Wait, hold on.

Indeed. A fine of 100% of gross revenue would seem to be more in order here.