MilConsumer Blog Feed

When Congress passed the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, it created minimum dollar thresholds for mandatory premerger reporting. In 2000, Congress amended the HSR statute to require an annual adjustment of these thresholds based on the change in gross national product. As a result, reportability under the Act changes from year to year as the statutory thresholds adjust. The HSR statute requires the Commission to assess and...

Regardless of which of the many remakes of “Mutiny on the Bounty” you’ve seen, they all involve an illegal takeover. Challenging a practice called review hijacking, an FTC complaint against The Bountiful Company – which manufactures dietary supplements , including under the Nature’s Bounty and Sundown names – charges that the business “took over” reviews and ratings that consumers had left for other Bountiful products on Amazon.com and falsely...

Romance scammers tell all sorts of lies to steal your heart and money, and reports to the FTC show those lies are working. Last year’s romance scam numbers looked a lot like 2021 all over again, and it’s not a pretty picture. In 2022, nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam, and reported losses hit a staggering $1.3 billion. [1] The median reported loss: $4,400. [2] These scammers pay close attention to the information you share, and don’t...

“ Rah, rah-ah-ah-ah. Roma, roma-ma. Gaga, ooh-la-la. Want your bad romance.” This Valentine’s Day if you find yourself gaga over an online love, the Federal Trade Commission – yes, the FTC – has advice on ways to tell if you could be caught in a “ Bad Romance.” According to a new Consumer Protection Data Spotlight , in 2022 the Consumer Sentinel Network received nearly 70,000 reports of romance scams, with reported financial losses hitting a...

On December 14th, 2022, in collaboration with technologists on team CTO and attorneys in BCP, I gave a presentation at the Federal Trade Commission’s December Open Commission meeting on the systemic approach to security found in the Commission’s orders. The goal of this post is to first explain how the FTC has worked to strengthen its remedies to address the underlying causes of risk in complex systems. The post then highlights some of the...

The company name may be GoodRx, but it’s unlikely that “good” is the adjective consumers would use to describe the way the company violated its privacy promises by disclosing their personal health information to companies like Facebook and Google without authorization. How did GoodRx accomplish that? By using automatic “plug and play” tracking pixels and software development kits (SDKs) from Facebook, Google, and other companies that are designed...

Hard at work on your response to the FTC’s request for comments about the Green Guides? You can breathe easier because the public comment period has been extended to April 24, 2023 . In December, the FTC announced it was taking a fresh look at its Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims . We’re asking for your feedback on the continued need for the Green Guides, their economic impact, and their interaction with other environmental...

It’s a match that should have been made in Home Improvement Heaven: consumers looking for service providers and service providers looking for new clients. But the FTC alleged in a 2022 complaint that Denver-based HomeAdvisor, Inc. – a company affiliated with Angi, formerly known as “Angie’s List” – used misleading tactics to sell home improvement project leads to many small businesses operating in the gig economy. A proposed settlement in the...

The workplace is in transition, with people considering career changes or dealing with layoffs. But as the FTC has warned for years, scammers find a way to exploit every trend – and this time they have job seekers in their sights. Have you come across one of these placement pretenders? The FTC wants to hear about your experience. We’ll say this much about the new breed of crook: They can be very convincing. Sometimes they cast a wide net...

When home cooks bake an apple pie, many of them use Pyrex glass measuring cups – products promoted as, well, “American as apple pie.” But despite prominent claims that certain of their measuring cups were “proudly made in the USA,” the FTC says that between May 2021 and March 2022, some consumers shopping on Amazon actually received products made in China . Illinois-based Instant Brands manufactures and sells housewares under the Pyrex brand name...