{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://schakowsky.house.gov/media/press-releases/schakowsky-castor-and-matsui-demand-answers-meta-ahead-energy-commerce", "Schakowsky, Castor, and Matsui Demand Answers from Meta Ahead of Energy & Commerce Subcommittee Markup, Citing Egregious User Privacy Violations", "2025-12-09", "2025", "2025-12", "Democrat", "House", "IL", "Janice D. Schakowsky", "S001145", "schakowsky.house.gov", "schakowsky", "https://schakowsky.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "Full Text of Letter (PDF)\n\nWASHINGTON \u2013 Today, U.S. Representatives Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Kathy Castor (FL-14), and Doris Matsui (CA-07) are demanding answers from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg regarding the company\u2019s covert use of an Android loophole to track users across the internet, regardless of their explicit privacy choices. The letter comes ahead of this Thursday\u2019s markup in the Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee of the Energy & Commerce Committee and underscores the urgent need for Congress to rein in Big Tech\u2019s repeated abuses of Americans\u2019 privacy.\n\nThe lawmakers are highlighting newly published research showing that Meta exploited developer-only Android features to dismantle core privacy protections and secretly monitor users\u2019 web activity. They warn that Meta continued this practice even when users took every available step to protect their personal information online.\n\n\u201cUnbeknownst to Meta\u2019s users, Meta\u2019s new tracking method followed them across the web even if the user tried to keep their browsing private,\u201d wrote the lawmakers. \u201cEven users who had chosen every available safeguard\u2014opting out of cookies, using a VPN, or enabling incognito mode\u2014were still tracked against their will, as Meta continued to listen through these hidden channels.\u201d\n\nThe Members stress that this conduct reflects a sustained pattern of Meta disregarding user privacy.\n\n\u201cThis persistent pattern demonstrates that the Meta\u2019s covert tracking we address today is part of a broader corporate strategy, not an isolated lapse,\u201d concluded the lawmakers.\n\nThe Members are seeking detailed answers about how Meta used this hidden tracking method, what data was collected, and whether the company will permanently delete all information obtained through the exploit.\n\n###", 1, "2026-04-04T05:28:40Z", "2026-04-04T05:30:10Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://schakowsky.house.gov/media/press-releases/schakowsky-castor-and-matsui-demand-answers-meta-ahead-energy-commerce"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 6.686964072287083, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}