[ad_1] As part of the settlement, AT&T customers who signed up for one of the company’s unlimited plans before 2011, the year the carrier first implemented its throttling policy, are entitled to a “partial refunds.” Additionally, moving forward AT&T must disclose whenever its plans include any sort of restrictions. “The disclosures need to be prominent, […]
Category: Ftc
FTC issues its first ban on ‘stalking’ apps
[ad_1] The FTC’s decision affects three applications in particular: MobileSpy, created to keep an eye on employees’ and kids’ devices, as well as PhoneSheriff and TeenShield, which were specifically designed to monitor kids’ phones. Retina-X sold 15,000 subscriptions for its apps before it stopped selling them last year. Retina-X apps bypass Android and iOS security […]
Sunday Riley settles with FTC over fraudulent skincare reviews
[ad_1] The settlement unsurprisingly bars Sunday Riley from posting fake reviews, but also requires that it clearly identify endorsers (and their connections), and asks it to “instruct” staff on their own disclosure responsibilities. Not everyone is pleased with the proposed settlement, however. The two dissenting FTC commissioners, Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, pointed out […]
Senator Wyden pushes his ‘Mind Your Own Business’ privacy act forward
[ad_1] As The Verge reports, the bill would allow the FTC to set minimum privacy and cybersecurity standards for tech companies, issue fines up to four percent of a company’s annual revenue and make it a crime for senior execs to lie to the agency regarding privacy issues. It would empower state attorneys general to […]
FTC sues Match for allegedly using deceptive love interest ads
[ad_1] Match wasn’t letting paid subscribers receive emails from these shady accounts. The FTC also accused Match of failing to properly disclose the hoops dateless users need to jump through to qualify for a free six-month subscription. Match also didn’t provide a simple way to cancel, officials said, and those that disputed charges through their […]
Vape brand Juul is reportedly at the center of a criminal probe
[ad_1] This will be another unwelcome challenge for the quickly-growing company, which has come under fire for the ways its sleek vaporizers have found appeal with young people. The Federal Trade Commission, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and several other state attorney generals are already investigating the company’s marketing practices, although Juul maintains it never […]
Facebook suspends tens of thousands of data-scraping apps
[ad_1] Some of those apps were suspended for inappropriately sharing data, making data available without protecting users’ identities or violating other Facebook policies. They include apps like myPersonality, the previously suspended app used by Cambridge Analytica. But not all of the suspended apps posed an active threat to users. Many were not live, and in […]
Google to settle YouTube child privacy violations for up to $200 million
[ad_1] The FTC approved the fine last month, but this is the first time the dollar amount has been reported. At the moment, details on the other terms of the settlement are unavailable. Just last week, we learned that YouTube is allegedly planning to ban targeted ads on videos aimed at children. It’s unclear if […]
The FTC is reportedly investigating Juul’s teen marketing tactics
[ad_1] Critics have said the company’s marketing campaigns make the brand attractive to teens. According to federal data, vaping among teens jumped 78 percent from 2017 to 2018. But the company says it has never marketed to youth and that its target market is existing adult smokers. The company previously came under fire for ads […]
AT&T and FTC settle lawsuit over data throttling
[ad_1] The case very nearly didn’t go forward in the first place. An appeals court effectively tossed the lawsuit in 2016 on the grounds that AT&T’s common carrier status exempted it from disclosing its throttling activity. In 2018, however, a federal court decided that the FTC could proceed with the case after noting that AT&T’s […]