MilConsumer Blog Feed

Tick. Tick. Tick. For small business owners, gig workers, and freelancers fighting for survival during the pandemic, every day that passed without essential capital put their futures at risk. So when Womply – also known as Oto Analytics, Inc. – and CEO Toby Scammell claimed to offer a “PPP Fast Lane” to get them speedy access to funds through the Paycheck Protection Program, it sounded like time was finally on their side. But according to a proposed FTC settlement, consumers got clocked by the defendants’ misleading claims that they could get people PPP loans and their false promise to process applications quickly. As part of the settlement, the defendants will pay $26 million in damages and are prohibited from making those types of misrepresentations in the future.

The FTC’s Tech Summit on AI [1] highlighted three panels that reflect different layers of the AI tech stack – hardware and infrastructure, data and models, and front-end user applications. Today, we publish the first in a three-part series of “Quote Books” summarizing each of the three panels. This first quote book is focused on hardware and infrastructure, including semiconductor chips and cloud computing. The voices of everyday Americans can...

Think about the two women across from you in the office. Now consider the sobering statistic that of those two women, one will battle cancer in her lifetime. The bad news gets worse when you realize there are sham charities out there that claim to offer financial assistance for people undergoing cancer treatment, but then spend donations for other purposes. The FTC and 10 states just sued Cancer Recovery Foundation International (also known as Women’s Cancer Fund) and Gregory B. Anderson, alleging the defendants collected $18 million from generous Americans between 2017 and 2022 while providing only $194,809 in financial support for cancer patients – literally about a penny of every donated dollar. According to the lawsuit, Anderson pocketed $775,139, nearly four times more than what the “charity” gave collectively to women battling cancer. But hold on to your hat – and your wallet – when you learn where the FTC and the States say the rest of the money went.

The FTC just announced final updates to the Telemarketing Sales Rule and there’s an important revision that will help protect small businesses from scammers making misrepresentations in B2B calls. But that’s not all. The FTC also announced a proposed amendment to the TSR that would extend coverage to inbound telemarketing calls involving technical support services – another category of calls that has inflicted injury on consumers.

Where can you hear technology researchers discuss what’s new and what’s next in talked-about tech topics like AI, deepfakes, and health privacy? At the FTC’s eighth annual PrivacyCon. It starts this morning – March 6, 2024 – and you can watch the webcast live.

There’s been a development in the world of television, but it has nothing to do with who’s starring or what’s streaming. It’s about an important consideration for consumers to keep in mind when shopping for a new TV – and helpful information businesses can provide to prospective customers.

Three recent FTC enforcement actions reflect a heightened focus on pervasive extraction and mishandling of consumers’ sensitive personal data. Proposed Settlements with Avast [1] , X-Mode [2] , and InMarket [3] In mid February, the FTC announced a proposed settlement to resolve allegations that Avast, a security software company, unfairly sold consumers’ granular and re-identifiable browsing information—information that Avast amassed through its...

Landlords and property managers can’t collude on rental pricing. Using new technology to do it doesn’t change that antitrust fundamental. Regardless of the industry you’re in, if your business uses an algorithm to determine prices, a brief filed by the FTC and the Department of Justice offers a helpful guideline for antitrust compliance: your algorithm can’t do anything that would be illegal if done by a real person.

If there were a bingo board that included just about every privacy and data security issue on the minds of consumers, academics, businesses, and government agencies, the FTC’s eight annual PrivacyCon would be a winner. Take a look at the just-announced agenda and clear your calendar for March 6, 2024, to hear what experts have to say about the latest research and trends.

Ever spend hours (and hours) inputting complicated financial information online only have it deleted? It’s frustrating enough when it’s due to a technical glitch, but according to an FTC complaint against tax preparer H&R Block, wiping out consumers’ already keyed-in tax data was an intentional sales tactic the company used to pressure people to pay for pricier products. Read on to learn more about H&R Block’s conduct that the FTC alleges is, well, taxing – and deceptive and unfair – to consumers.