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Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD). WEAAD gives all of us a chance to raise awareness about elder financial abuse, neglect, and exploitation.

On May 19, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed the TAKE IT DOWN Act (“Act”) into law. Championed by First Lady Melania Trump, the Act represents a significant step in combating harmful digital exploitation, including the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images and the growing threat of deepfake abuse. Today, the Federal Trade Commission begins enforcing Section 3 of the Act against platforms that fail to comply with the law’s notice and removal requirements, which ensure that people can quickly and easily get these images—real or fake—taken down.

All week long, learn how the FTC can help you protect your small business from scams and online threats. Run a small business or want to support the small businesses in your community? Here’s how you can get involved.

Parents and kids (like all consumers) need clear, truthful information to make informed decisions — especially when those decisions affect their children’s health and physical safety. With that in mind, the FTC is working to protect kids and teens from deceptive health claims. Take the Agency’s recent case: the FTC charged Vanilla Chip LLC, which does business as TruHeight, with using unsubstantiated health claims and fake or incentivized reviews to market its supplements to kids, teenagers, and caregivers.

Scammers reach people in many different ways – phone calls, texts, emails – but reports to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network point to social media as a scammer favorite. In 2025, nearly 30% of people who reported losing money to a scam said it started on social media, [1] with reported losses reaching a staggering $2.1 billion. That’s far more than the losses reported to any other form of contact, and about eight times the 2020 figure. [2] And...

The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection (BCP) is committed to providing legal clarity to legitimate businesses that wish to deal honestly with their customers and comply with the law. Last year, I shared how to work most effectively with BCP staff if your business receives a Civil Investigative Demand (CID), and the consequences that can result if businesses fail to cooperate. Now I’d like to address another integral part of responding to a BCP CID and engaging with BCP during an investigation: early and substantive engagement with BCP staff and, in cases in which the FTC is seeking monetary relief, the FTC’s Bureau of Economics (BE).

The FTC recently published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to request input on whether it needs to update the Negative Option Rule from 1973. The comment period is open until April 13, so now is the time to read the notice and submit your comment.

Many of us use or work with rental housing in some way. Maybe you have been — or are currently — a renter. Or maybe you own a rental property, operate a property management company, or otherwise work with or around rental housing. If any of that applies to you, the FTC wants to hear from you.

If you’re thinking about opening a franchise, you’re probably looking for things like name recognition, training, and support to help you grow your business. What you’re probably not looking for is for a franchisor to mislead you about the risks and costs of opening a franchise. That’s exactly what the FTC alleges Xponential Fitness, one of the world’s largest franchisors of boutique fitness studios, did to prospective franchisees.

The Bureau of Consumer Protection is deeply honored to recognize one of its most distinguished alumnae, Jodie Bernstein, as she celebrates her 100 th Birthday. For Jodie, one of the Commission’s distinguished Miles W. Kirkpatrick Award recipients, this marks yet another milestone in a life filled with extraordinary accomplishments. Her career, in many ways, mirrors the history of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Jodie first joined the...