NGL App Unfairly Marketed to Kids and Teens, Says FTC Ruling

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has banned NGL Labs from offering anonymous messaging apps to kids under 18 in a new court ruling.

The commission and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office have taken action against NGL Labs and two of its co-founders, Joao Figueiredo and Raj Vir. They claim NGL (an internet abbreviation for “not gonna lie”) unfairly marketed its app to children and teens.

Per an FTC press release, “The FTC and Los Angeles DA’s Office allege that NGL and its co-founders only actively marketed their service to children and teens, but that they also falsely claimed that its AI content moderation program filtered out cyberbullying and other harmful messages.”

The complaint also states, “The NGL App purports to allow consumers to receive anonymous messages from friends and social media contacts. Consumers can send pre-generated prompts for their friends and social media contacts to answer anonymously (e.g., ‘Send me a pickup line, and I’ll tell you if it worked,’ ‘If you could change anything about me, what would it be?’, ‘Who would you ship me with?,’ ‘Share an opinion that’ll get you canceled’).”

FTC Bans 'NGL' From Offering Its Anonymous Messaging App to Kids https://t.co/XSBI8R4Usk

— PCMag (@PCMag) July 9, 2024

It continues, “Defendants’ own internal communications reveal that Defendants knew that these messages were deceiving and harassing consumers and that Defendants actively participated in the violations of law alleged herein…Defendants included the prompt for consumers to buy the NGL Pro subscription to see ‘who sent’ a message even when the message that the consumer had received was a fake message that the Defendants themselves had generated.”

The company reportedly charged consumers for NGL Pro without disclosing the app’s terms of purchase and without obtaining consent from consumers about any subsequent charges. The company reportedly failed to openly disclose the costs of NGL Pro and what consumers would receive after subscribing.

NGL has recently shared new changes it is implementing on its website. The company’s statement reads, “We created NGL as a place to create and foster meaningful and authentic social connections, and we are committed to cultivating a community rooted in kindness and understanding. We also take our responsibility to protect the community seriously, and we are constantly improving NGL to stay up-to-date with an ever-changing online world.”

The changes include age verification, which means the app is now reportedly exclusively available to users over 18. Also, messages from Team NGL will now be clearly labeled and marked with a different color in users’ inboxes.

The company also made changes to NGL Pro. Now, users can manage their subscriptions more effectively from the app. Plus, the company implemented user controls such as hidden words, the ability to block users, pausing any link, and advanced message filtering.

Sam Levine, head of consumer protection at the FTC, spoke to the New York Times, saying the agency’s action sends a message to tech agencies that violate child privacy laws. “We’re taking a broad look at how these apps are affecting kids and teens,” he said.

According to the news outlet, NGL stated that some of the complaint’s claims were “factually incorrect.” However, the company still made changes to meet the settlement’s requirements. “After nearly two years of cooperating with the FTC’s investigation, we view this resolution as an opportunity to make NGL better than ever for our users and we think the agreement is in our best interest,” Joao Figueiredo said.