In late May, the Federal Trade Commission sought an injunction in the Northern District of California against Edmodo, which has historically offered school districts a virtual classroom platform with tools for assignments, quizzes, and similar items. The FTC argues that Edmodo violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by failing to obtain parental consent to certain disclosures of children’s personal information.
As the FTC has long expressed in guidance,… More
In recent years, the FTC has increasingly focused on protecting consumers’ access to healthcare, through both its competition and its consumer protection missions. Similarly, the FTC has become a force in federal privacy regulation, second only to the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services. On occasion, the FTC’s priorities in access to health care and health information privacy have come together,… More
In a very comprehensive post from the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Technology, the FTC takes what it calls “[a] deep dive into the technical side of FTC’s recent cases on digital health platforms, GoodRx & BetterHelp.”
As most readers know, the FTC recently took enforcement action against GoodRx and BetterHelp, two digital healthcare platforms, for allegedly sharing user health data with third parties for advertising.… More
On August 22, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) indicated through the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking its intent to limit commercial surveillance – the common corporate practice of collecting, analyzing, and monetizing consumers’ data. As slews of data breaches resulted in millions of dollars in settlement and countless consumers whose data had been jeopardized, 33 states, including Massachusetts, New York, and Texas, showed support for the FTC’s proposed rule through a comment letter dated November 17,… More
InfoTrax Systems, a Utah-based technology company, has agreed to implement a comprehensive data security program to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the company failed to put in place reasonable security safeguards, which allowed a hacker to access the personal information of a million consumers. InfoTrax Systems, L.C., provides back-end operation services to multi-level marketers. This includes such services as compensation, inventory, orders, accounting, training,… More
On May 9, 2019, a coalition of consumer groups submitted a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) regarding Amazon’s Echo Dot Kids Edition, arguing that the device runs afoul of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). The Echo Dot Kids Edition is a child-focused version of Amazon’s popular voice-activated smart speaker device that utilizes Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant.… More
As summarized nicely in the FTC FAQs below, there is a new law, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, that makes credit freezes free and extends fraud alerts to last a full year. Here are some of the most common questions raised about this new law, and the FTC’s answers:
Q: I already had a credit freeze in place when the new law took effect on September 21,… More
As if having to deal with all the EU’s Data Protection Authorities wasn’t challenge enough for companies trying to comply with GDPR, the FTC has now asserted that it has a role in GDPR enforcement. In particular, the FTC says it has a role in making sure that US companies live up to the GDPR-related promises that they make. This position came to fruition in a proposed FTC settlement with California-based employment training company,… More
As noted in the FTC alert below from Lisa Weintraub Schifferle, an attorney with the FTC’s Division of Consumer & Business Education, thanks to a new federal law, soon you can get free credit freezes and year-long fraud alerts. Here’s what to look forward to when the law takes effect on September 21st:
Free credit freezes
Crypto is a Greek prefix meaning “secret” or “hidden.” Unless you live under a rock, or in one of several countries like Bolivia where buying and selling it is illegal, there is nothing secret or hidden about cryptocurrency. It’s everywhere. And public interest in cryptocurrency has led to lots of advertising, mostly on social media and the internet.
Spurred on by an incredible—some might say too-good-to-be-true—increase in value in late 2017,… More