If you have clients in the auto industry, you’ve seen the ads: “We’ll pay off your trade no matter what you owe . . . even if you’re upside down.” It’s an attractive claim to people struggling with...

Six online marketers have settled FTC charges stemming from their use of fake news websites to market acai berry supplements and other weight loss products. If you’re an affiliate marketer or you’re...

Of course, people are responsible for their debts. However, at a certain point, how much time has passed becomes an affirmative defense under state law and creditors can’t prevail in court. But what...

We’re glad you’re visiting the BCP Business Center and thanks for your questions. Here are answers to some of your AQs. (Calling them FAQs on a site devoted to truth in advertising doesn’t seem quite...

When consumers comparison shop, cost is crucial. That’s why it’s so important for companies to make sure what they say about their prices is accurate. If businesses need a timely reminder, the FTC’s...

The terms of an FTC settlement apply just to that business, of course. But clued-in companies know there’s a lot that can be learned from someone else’s alleged misstep. The FTC’s law enforcement...

When the FTC brings a law enforcement action, we hope companies take notice. But sometimes there’s a nugget or two that businesses can glean from a decision by the FTC staff to close an investigation...

The FTC v. Lane Labs story started with shark cartilage and the latest chapter involves a contempt ruling from a federal judge. If the FTC’s advertising substantiation doctrine is relevant to your...

As anyone who’s watched TV in the past decade knows, Kevin Trudeau is — to use the term coined by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit — an “infomercialist.” The Seventh Circuit...

The terms of the FTC’s proposed settlement apply only to Facebook. But to paraphrase noted legal scholar Bob Dylan, companies that want to stay off the law enforcement radar don’t need a weatherman to...

The FTC’s complaint against Facebook outlines eight separate areas where the FTC says Facebook’s privacy practices were deceptive or unfair. What provisions does the proposed order put in place to...

When it comes to privacy promises, what you say you do with people’s personal information has to line up with your day-to-day practices. That’s the message of the FTC’s proposed settlement announced...

It billed itself as “Facebook and Myspace for kids,” but according to a settlement with the FTC, the Skid-e-Kids website failed to meet critical compliance obligations under COPPA, the Children’s...

In celebration of Halloween — and with apologies to Edgar Allen Poe — here’s our take on what companies can do to make sure spooky business practices don’t come back to haunt them. Once upon a...

Between the picture of the President and Vice-President standing in front of the American flag and the references to government funds to stabilize the economy, it’s understandable that people who...

It’s unusual for an FTC court document to come with a warning label, but the allegations contained in a recent debt collection case against an outfit doing business as Rumson, Bolling & Associates...

FTC watchers will remember Phillip A. Flora. In the first case of its kind, the FTC alleged that Mr. Flora was a One-Man Message Machine, churning out a “mind-boggling” number of unsolicited...

The FTC’s settlement with Reebok requires the company to get their ad claims in shape and works out a $25 million refund program for people who bought EasyTone and RunTone shoes and apparel. Of course...

Shape up your substantiation or tone down your ads. That’s the message marketers should take from the FTC’s $25 million settlement with Reebok for false and unsubstantiated claims for the company’s...

If necessity is the mother of invention, bogus invention promotion companies are the sketchy brothers-in-law. That’s why inventors who think they may have that Next Big Thing should investigate...