Blog Posts Tagged with Privacy and Security

When businesses know the rules of the road, they can confidently invest in new ventures, technologies, and products. Under my leadership, the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection (BCP) is committed to...

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...

Bitcoin ATMs (or BTMs) [1] have been popping up at convenience stores, gas stations, and other high-traffic areas for years. [2] For some, they’re a convenient way to buy or send crypto, but for...

The Federal Trade Commission routinely evaluates the privacy representations a company makes against their data handling practices. [1] When discrepancies arise between claim and reality, incorrect...

For thousands of years, from ancient Mesopotamian markets to the modern-day yard sale, sellers have set their prices based, in part, on who was buying. In these transactions, prices can be targeted...

An anonymous messaging app marketed to kids and teens: What could possibly go wrong? A lot, allege the FTC and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. A complaint against NGL Labs and founders Raj...

If your business is covered by the FTC’s Gramm-Leach Bliley Safeguards Rule, an amendment to the Rule that requires covered companies to report certain data breaches and other security events to the...

Some say the car a person drives can say a lot about them. As cars get “connected,” this turns out to be truer than many people might have realized. While connectivity can let drivers do things like...

It was Shakespeare who said, “Once more unto the breach.” The FTC’s goal is never more unto the breach, but until companies keep health data secure and private, we’ll continue to update and enforce...

A look into multi-party computation and oblivious proxies The landscape of digital privacy is constantly evolving as companies and researchers implement new methods to enhance user privacy. For...

January 29th kicks off 2024’s Identity Theft Awareness Week, but consumer-conscious companies promote identity theft awareness – and prevention – 52 weeks a year. As the FTC, federal and state...

The FTC announced proposed revisions to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule on December 20, 2023. The online portal to file public comments is now open and the FTC welcomes your...

If you’ll be seeing college-age relatives over the holidays, warn them about a variation on the “job interview” scam that students looking for summer or permanent employment have reported to us. And...

Sometimes being the “Home of . . .” is an honorific to be proud of. Kudos, Cleveland, for rock ‘n’ roll, and thank you, Buffalo, for your contribution to chicken wings. But the Birthplace of Frauds...

Preparing for an emergency used to be an easier task for small businesses. Coastal companies could plan for hurricane season and northern businesses could expect a blizzard or two every winter. But...

What you say in your home, what you do in your home. It doesn’t get more private than that. But, according to two recent FTC complaints, Amazon and Ring used this highly private data – voice...

Care About COPPA Compliance may not be the coolest Xbox gamertag, but an FTC action against Microsoft for alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule suggests it might be a...

“Stop it!” Moms and Dads may have to repeat that instruction to their kids, but when parents said it to Amazon in an effort to get the company to delete children’s voice data obtained through its...

Educational technology hasn’t totally overtaken chalk dust and penmanship, but ed tech certainly has found its way into schools. A proposed settlement with Edmodo, LLC, alleges the ed tech company...

You may have heard of simulation theory, the notion that nothing is real and we’re all part of a giant computer program. Let’s assume at least for the length of this blog post that this notion is...