MilConsumer Blog Feed

Earlier this year, the Office of Technology (OT) published a list of research questions and made reference to the long history in mathematics of doling out questions that, as mathematician Paul Erdős put it, “can isolate an essential difficulty in a particular area, serving as a benchmark against which progress ... can be measured.” [1] In the spirit of posing complex questions, the Traveling Salesman Problem is a classic problem in the theory of...

The FTC recently announced a new enforcement action in which it alleged that the data broker Mobilewalla collected and retained sensitive location information from consumers—often without their consent—and shared those details with third parties to target advertisements. This data can reveal visits to healthcare facilities, churches, labor unions, military installations, and other sensitive locations. While it is hardly the first time the FTC has...

Today, the FTC continues its fight against unsupported claims about facial recognition through a proposed settlement with software company IntelliVision. According to the FTC, IntelliVision advertised AI-based facial recognition software that it claimed had one of the highest accuracy rates on the market and performed with zero gender or racial bias. IntelliVision also told potential customers its software was trained on millions of images from...

Don’t judge a book by its cover – how a technology is named doesn’t tell you how it is used. This is the case with Data Clean Rooms (“DCRs”), which are not rooms, do not clean data, and have complicated implications for user privacy, despite their squeaky-clean name. Data Clean Rooms are cloud data processing services that let companies exchange and analyze data, restrained by rules that limit data use. They are typically used when two companies...

As antitrust practitioners know, parties to certain mergers and acquisitions are required to submit premerger notification forms that disclose information about their proposed deal and business operations to the FTC and DOJ’s Antitrust Division. By now, everyone has heard the news that the Commission voted unanimously to issue rules that update the information parties must provide to the agencies on their HSR Forms. That rulemaking was published...

For some events business owners may face, an immediate response is key to a positive outcome. Think dealing with medical emergencies, fires, and data breaches. And then there are other things where a slow, deliberate approach yields better results. Hiring a new executive. Locating perfect office space. Applying for grants. Today’s settlement with Sitejabber is a reminder of another task businesses should keep on that slow-and-steady list...

Professionals in the pest control and HVAC fields show up to your home when you need them most. Unexpected repairs can be a pain for consumers and their budget, but millions of Americans depend upon short notice visits by an exterminator or HVAC technician to nip the issue in the bud or to keep unsightly bugs out of sight. These workers’ talents are always in demand. A free, fair, and competitive economy would permit these types of workers to...

Benjamin Franklin famously declared, “When you’re good to others, you’re best to yourself.” Maybe he was giving general advice about being a nice person. But it’s also possible the United States’ widely acknowledged father of commercial franchising was tipping his hat to fellow franchisors looking to build their businesses. In other words, when you’re good to your franchisees, you’re best to your own business. It goes without saying that Benjamin...

The FTC has long regulated negative options through the Negative Option Rule and strategic enforcement actions. Today, the FTC builds on that work by announcing a set of common-sense revisions to the Negative Option Rule, now known as the Rule Concerning Recurring Subscriptions and Other Negative Option Programs. The revisions are designed to protect people from misleading enrollment tactics, billing practices, and cancellation policies, and...

Get ready. It’s almost Store Your Records Day for telemarketers everywhere. You’re probably asking, what do telemarketers have to do with folks lining up outside of their local record stores to buy limited edition vinyl releases? Doesn’t Record Store Day happen in April and November? And, importantly, will there ever be a release that compares to the vinyl edition of Taylor Swift’s Long Pond Studio Sessions or Olivia Rodrigo’s Secret Tracks? Well...