POM Wonderful may not be so wonderful, but that might not be so surprising, given the history of
Stewart and
Lynda Resnick. The couple are involved with much more than pomegranate juice: they own
Fiji Water, pesticide manufacturer
Suterra, Paramount Agribusiness (source of
citris,
well-known pistachios and
other nuts), and
former owners of the Franklin Mint. This round with the Resnicks started in
February 2010, with a warning from the FDA, which lead to
a confusing bit of restraining order requested, then soon after requested to be withdrawn (with
fears of pushing the First Amendment too far). That phase is past, but POM Wonderful is now stating they believe "
very strongly in its first amendment rights to communicate the promising results,"
results which look similar to placebos taken by control subjects.
The FTC is not impressed.
posted by filthy light thief
on Sep 28, 2010 -
29 comments
Much has been made of the ethics of bloggers who receive compensation -- usually in the form of demo units and trial versions of products -- in exchange for reviewing those products, often with the implicit understanding that the review is a positive one. These questions prompted an FTC investigation, and last fall the agency revised their
formal guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials to include bloggers or other "word-of-mouth" marketers. The Interactive Agency Bureau maintains that the guidelines are unconstitutional, and is calling for the FTC to
rescind the rules as they apply to bloggers and other online outlets. The latest casualty? An intern at TechCrunch asked for a MacBook Air in exchange for a post. In the wake of this revelation, TechCrunch fired the intern and issued a
formal apology. To his credit, the intern has posted his own
mea culpa.
posted by shiu mai baby
on Feb 5, 2010 -
69 comments
In January 2005 , someone using the name "Rahodeb" went online to a Yahoo stock-market forum and posted this opinion: "No company would want to buy Wild Oats Markets Inc., a natural-foods grocer, at its price then of about $8 a share." Who was that random fool? Why, none other than John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods. Whole Foods
purchased Wild Oats earlier this year for approximately $18.50 a share, but
the FTC has an issue with Whole Foods buying out their competitor. Mackey had responded to the FTC's complaint on his
blog, but has not posted since some of his
other online comments became publicly attached to his name.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero
on Jul 12, 2007 -
80 comments
FTC imposes $10M fine against ChoicePoint for data breach The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has fined ChoicePoint $10 million for a data breach that allowed identity thieves posing as legitimate businesses to steal social security numbers, credit reports, and other data from nearly 140,000 people. This is the largest fine ever levied by the FTC. ChoicePoint also has to set up a 'trust fund' for people victimized by identity thieves. From the article: 'As part of its agreement with the FTC, ChoicePoint will also have to submit to comprehensive security audits every two years for the next 20 years.'"
BusinessWeek has additional info.
Perhaps there might be hope for individual privacy after all. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.
posted by mk1gti
on Jan 26, 2006 -
22 comments
Lose WeightMoney Fast! If you click on this link, you'll go to an apparent sales site for "FatFoe
TM Eggplant Extract" another 'miracle' weight loss aid. But click on the
Order Now! link and you get a lecture from the FTC on how to avoid getting scammed by diet products that are too good to be true, all part of the US Federal agency's
campaign against diet fraud.
posted by wendell
on Nov 9, 2004 -
12 comments
Music labels charged with price-fixing ... again While their organization is fighting hard to picture potential consumers as de-facto delinquents, the FTC has issued a rulign prohibitng them from
agreeing with competitors to fix the prices or restrict the advertising of products they produced independently .
The labels deny any wrongdoing, as they did with earlier FTC charges of a much larger price-fixing scandal that
cost consumers an estimated $480 million (and was settled by paying 41 suing states $67.4 million in cash and offering $75.7 million in CDs.).
Here is an idea: the main culprits of the labels losses, by far, are the rapidly receding sales of ...
cassette, LP and vinyl products. Who'd have thought of that?
posted by magullo
on Jul 31, 2003 -
12 comments
FTC creates national ‘do not call’ list While there have been state lists for quite some time, and some organizations (like the
DMA) maintain do-not-call lists requiring members to honor DNC requests, the FCC is now talking about a single, federal list that would require compliance from all telemarketers, and levy fines for non-compliance. Is this the end of telemarketing as we know it today?
posted by MidasMulligan
on Dec 18, 2002 -
40 comments
Finally, no more Miss Cleo commercials as the Federal Trade Commission steps into to prosecute late-night TV's most popular psychic peddler. At first I thought if you dumb enough to call a psychic line, the gov't shouldn't be stepping in to block the charges, as the article notes the average call was $60, but they also note misleading "free reading" claims and crooked billing procedures. If you're making that kind of money, why resort to underhanded business practices? Even more obvious: why didn't she see this coming and change their ways?
posted by mathowie
on Feb 19, 2002 -
24 comments
Take that Meatfilter.com... On Monday, Oct. 1, the FTC plans to announce the beginning of a campaign against scores of Web sites that capitalize on typo variants of popular domain names in order to dupe unsuspecting Internet surfers.
I think this is a good thing, but how far can the US government truly influence shady internet practices? Should it even try?
posted by thewittyname
on Oct 1, 2001 -
18 comments
Although this story doesn't sound like much, the FTC coming down on Time Warner, the effects could be great. Time Warner has agreed to ban their minimum pricing on featured new CDs, admitting that for the last seven years, these compact discs have been artificially overpriced. Do you think making CDs cheaper for the first time in years had anything to do with all the attention mp3s have been getting from consumers?
posted by mathowie
on May 10, 2000 -
5 comments
