MilConsumer Blog Feed

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.

When uttered by a pirate, “Avast!” is a nautical term for “Listen up and cut it out.” And when the FTC says “Avast!” to software company Avast, it means the same thing. UK-based Avast Limited told consumers that using its software would protect their privacy by preventing the tracking and collection of their browser information. But according to the FTC, from 2014 to 2020, guess who was tracking consumers’ browser information and then selling it to more than 100 other companies through an affiliate called Jumpshot? Ironically enough, Avast Limited. We’re not sure how much the $16.5 million financial remedy is in doubloons, but we hope the terms of the proposed settlement will remind other companies to relegate conduct like that to Davy Jones’ Locker.

The Bureau of Consumer Protection welcomes an open dialogue with parties cooperating with its investigations. Such dialogue allows the Bureau to make more informed decisions on whether to recommend an enforcement action and, if so, whether such an action can be resolved without the need for protracted litigation. But the Bureau is also mindful that delays in our investigations can undermine the public interest by allowing lawbreaking to continue and by depriving consumers of redress for harms they have suffered. As such, today we are making clear that while substantive engagement is welcome and constructive, we are prepared to pivot more quickly to litigation if undue delay comes at the expense of redress for consumers.

Small businesses are the engines that drive the American economy and capital is the fuel that propels them forward. So when fast-talking operators target small businesses with deceptive or unfair tactics, the FTC takes action. Following a January 2024 jury trial, a federal court entered a judgment requiring merchant cash advance company owner Jonathan Braun to pay $20.3 million in monetary relief and civil penalties for misleading small businesses and unlawfully seizing their assets. Read on for some staggering examples of what the court described as Braun’s “lack of remorse for his blatantly illegal conduct.”