Tech industry to FTC: stop studios from giving consumers scary, inaccurate copyright warnings.
posted by grobstein on Aug 1, 2007 - 26 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

In the last few years, Fair Isaacs, along with the FTC have made considerable effort in educating us in how our credit scores are derived. But is the whole system about to change? In a somewhat quiet AP story, the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Transunion, and Experian, announced they had agreed on a new common formula for generating your credit scores: VantageScore. [more inside]
posted by poppo on Mar 15, 2006 - 42 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 "FatFoeTM 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

"The Federal Trade Commission and Congress must act to prevent Fox News from using the deceptive and misleading trademark 'Fair and Balanced.'" After yesterday's 2,700 viewing parties and a Doonsbury plug, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is now the #1 selling DVD on Amazon. At the same time, MoveOn launches a campaign against the slogan, and AlterNet challenges Fox's trademark. (Previous discussion.)
posted by muckster on Jul 19, 2004 - 64 comments

Senate approves S.887 Can-Spam Bill. Spammers unhappy.FTC to report to Congress with a plan for creating a Do-Not-E-mail registry.
posted by elpapacito on Oct 23, 2003 - 23 comments

U.S. court rules FTC overstepped its authority when it set up the list to block telemarketing calls. Damn.
posted by MidasMulligan on Sep 24, 2003 - 64 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

The Federal Trade Commission's National "Do Not Call" Registry, intended to stop unwanted telemarketing calls, became law yesterday. Do telemarketers have a First Amendment right to call you? The Direct Marketing Association, and industry lobby, thinks so.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood on Mar 12, 2003 - 27 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

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to curtail the activities of telemarketers through the creation of a national 'do-not-call' registry. But the telemarketing industry says the FTC's plan would violate their First Amendment rights.
posted by jjg on Jan 23, 2002 - 20 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

FTC ends investigation of DoubleClick and finds no evidence of wrongdoing. I don't know about you, but I feel cheated. Don't forget to opt out of their cookie-bending racket.
posted by mathowie on Jan 23, 2001 - 16 comments

FTC unanimously approves AOL/Time Warner merger. With a couple of restraint-avoidance conditions. Wonder who's gonna enforce those... Aw, crap.
posted by baylink on Dec 14, 2000 - 9 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