"The Trump administration’s Federal Trade Commission has removed four years’ worth of business guidance blogs as of Tuesday morning, including important consumer protection information related to artificial intelligence and the agency’s landmark privacy lawsuits under former chair Lina Khan against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. More than 300 blogs were removed.

On the FTC’s website, the page hosting all of the agency’s business-related blogs and guidance no longer includes any information published during former president Joe Biden’s administration, current and former FTC employees, who spoke under anonymity for fear of retaliation, tell WIRED. These blogs contained advice from the FTC on how big tech companies could avoid violating consumer protection laws."

https://www.wired.com/story/federal-trade-commission-removed-blogs-critical-of-ai-amazon-microsoft/

#USA #Trump #FTC #Antitrust #ConsumerProtection #Privacy #BigTech #AI

Sell SEll #Sell !
"Two Democratic commissioners fired from #ftc.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired the only two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, handing the remaining Republican commissioners exclusive control over the agency that oversees antitrust and consumer protection laws and serves as the U.S. government’s primary regulator of the tech industry."
#premarket
#investing
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/18/two-democratic-commissioners-fired-ftc/

FTC startet Untersuchung zur "Zensur durch Tech-Plattformen". Experten zweifeln an korrekter Auslegung des ersten Verfassungszusatzes. #FTC #Zensur #Trump #USA https://winfuture.de/news,149030.html?utm_source=Mastodon&utm_medium=ManualStatus&utm_campaign=SocialMedia

"The Federal Trade Commission announced a proposed settlement agreeing that General Motors and its subsidiary, OnStar, will be banned from selling geolocation and driver behavior data to credit agencies for five years. That’s good news for G.M. owners. Every car owner and driver deserves to be protected.

Last year, a New York Times investigation highlighted how G.M. was sharing information with insurance companies without clear knowledge from the driver. This resulted in people’s insurance premiums increasing, sometimes without them realizing why that was happening. This data sharing problem was common amongst many carmakers, not just G.M., but figuring out what your car was sharing was often a Sisyphean task, somehow managing to be more complicated than trying to learn similar details about apps or websites."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/ftcs-ban-gm-and-onstar-selling-driver-behavior-good-first-step

#USA #FTC #GM #OnStar #Privacy #LocationData #GeoLocation #DataProtection

"The Federal Trade Commission’s initial findings from its surveillance pricing market study revealed that details like a person’s precise location or browser history can be frequently used to target individual consumers with different prices for the same goods and services.

The staff perspective is based on an examination of documents obtained by FTC staff’s 6(b) orders sent to several companies in July aiming to better understand the shadowy market that third-party intermediaries use to set individualized prices for products and services based on consumers’ characteristics and behaviors, like location, demographics, browsing patterns and shopping history.

Staff found that consumer behaviors ranging from mouse movements on a webpage to the type of products that consumers leave unpurchased in an online shopping cart can be tracked and used by retailers to tailor consumer pricing."

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-surveillance-pricing-study-indicates-wide-range-personal-data-used-set-individualized-consumer

#USA #FTC #SurveillancePricing #Surveillance #DataProtection

"The Biden administration and the states of Illinois and Minnesota sued tractor and agricultural manufacturer John Deere Wednesday, arguing that the company’s anti consumer repair practices have driven up prices for farmers and have made it difficult for them to get repairs during critical planting and harvesting seasons. The lawsuit alleges that Deere has monopoly power over the repair market, which 404 Media has been reporting on for years.

The lawsuit, filed by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorney generals of Illinois and Minnesota, is the latest and most serious legal salvo against Deere’s repair monopoly. Deere is also facing a class-action lawsuit related to its repair practices from consumers in Illinois that the Department of Justice and other federal entities have signaled they are interested in and support, as we reported last year.

“The Federal Trade Commission today files suit against agricultural equipment manufacturer Deere & Company, stating that it has illegally restricted the ability of farmers and independent technicians to repair Deere equipment, including tractors and combines,” FTC commissioner Lina Khan wrote in a formal comment explaining the decision."

https://www.404media.co/ftc-sues-john-deere-over-its-repair-monopoly/

#USA #FTC #JohnDeere #RightToRepair #Monopolies #RepairMonopoly #Antitrust

FTC lawsuit against Meta to proceed to bench trial in April 2025. FTC claims Meta acted illegally to maintain a monopoly on social networks, and it overpaid for Instagram and WhatsApp to eliminate competitive threats. https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-faces-april-trial-ftc-case-seeking-unwind-instagram-merger-2024-11-25/ #meta #instagram #whatsapp #FTC #lawsuit #monopoly

"The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced sweeping action against some of the most important companies in the location data industry on Tuesday, including those that power surveillance tools used by a wide spread of U.S. law enforcement agencies and demanding they delete data related to certain sensitive areas like health clinics and places of worship.

Venntel, through its parent company Gravy Analytics, takes location data from smartphones, either through ordinary apps installed on them or through the advertising ecosystem, and then provides that data feed to other companies who sell location tracking technology to the government or sells the data directly itself. Venntel is the company that provides the underlying data for a variety of other government contractors and surveillance tools, including Locate X. 404 Media and a group of other journalists recently revealed Locate X could be used to pinpoint phones that visited abortion clinics.

The FTC says in a proposed order that Gravy and Venntel will be banned from selling, disclosing, or using sensitive location data, except in “limited circumstances” involving national security or law enforcement."

#USA #FTC #LocationData #Venntel #Gravy #DataBrokers #DataBrokerage #DataProtection #Privacy #Surveillance

https://www.404media.co/ftc-bans-location-data-company-that-powers-the-surveillance-ecosystem/

"Workers should have the right to know which of their data is being collected, who it's being shared by, and how it's being used. We all should have that right. That's what the actors' strike was partly motivated by: actors who were being ordered to wear mocap suits to produce data that could be used to produce a digital double of them, "training their replacement," but the replacement was a deepfake.

With a Trump administration on the horizon, the future of the FTC is in doubt. But the coalition for a new privacy law includes many of Trumpland's most powerful blocs – like Jan 6 rioters whose location was swept up by Google and handed over to the FBI. A strong privacy law would protect their Fourth Amendment rights – but also the rights of BLM protesters who experienced this far more often, and with far worse consequences, than the insurrectionists.

The "we do it with an app, so it's not illegal" ruse is wearing thinner by the day. When you have a boss for an app, your real boss gets an accountability sink, a convenient scapegoat that can be blamed for your misery.

The fact that this makes you worse at your job, that it loses your boss money, is no guarantee that you will be spared. Rich people make great marks, and they can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. Markets won't solve this one – but worker power can."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/26/hawtch-hawtch/#you-treasure-what-you-measure

#Work #WageSlavery #WorkerSurveillance #Bossware #Privacy #AI #DataProtection #FTC #USA

"A Federal Trade Commission lawsuit is leading to changes for consumers who use H&R Block’s do-it-yourself online tax filing products. A proposed FTC settlement would stop H&R Block from unfairly requiring consumers seeking to downgrade to a cheaper H&R Block product to contact customer service, from unfairly deleting users' previously entered data and from making deceptive claims about “free” tax filing.

The tax-filing company has agreed to a proposed settlement that will require the company to make a number of changes for the 2025 tax filing season in addition to longer-term changes. The settlement would also require the company to pay $7 million to the FTC to be used to redress consumers harmed by the company’s unlawful practices.

“American taxpayers who seek tax-filing help should be able to choose the services they need—and know the truth about how much they’ll pay,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The FTC’s action today will help lower the stress and expense of tax season for millions of taxpayers.”

The FTC filed an administrative lawsuit against H&R Block in February 2024, charging that the company deceptively advertised that its online tax filing products were “free” when many—if not most—consumers could not actually file for free."

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/11/ftc-action-stops-hr-blocks-unfair-downgrading-practices-deceptive-promises-free-filing

#USA #FTC #TaxFilling #DeceptiveAdvertising #Taxes

"Don’t judge a book by its cover – how a technology is named doesn’t tell you how it is used. This is the case with Data Clean Rooms (“DCRs”), which are not rooms, do not clean data, and have complicated implications for user privacy, despite their squeaky-clean name.

Data Clean Rooms are cloud data processing services that let companies exchange and analyze data, restrained by rules that limit data use. They are typically used when two companies want to exchange limited information about their customers. For example, a newspaper and a grocery store might use a DCR to evaluate the efficacy of an advertisement by identifying grocery sales made to newspaper subscribers. However, a close examination of DCRs yields an evergreen lesson: even if privacy enhancing technologies alone can’t protect privacy and even if they address some privacy risks, they can contribute to others.

In some cases, DCRs can add privacy protections to the handling of consumer data. In others, disclosure of consumer data via DCRs presents the same privacy risks as disclosure through other means like tracking pixels. DCRs, like other technologies that claim to protect privacy, can also be used to obfuscate privacy harms."

https://www.ftc.gov/policy/advocacy-research/tech-at-ftc/2024/11/data-clean-rooms-separating-fact-fiction

#USA #FTC #DataCleanRooms #DCRs #Privacy #DataProtection

Federal Trade Commission Warns Data Brokers about the Uncontrolled Sale of Raw Location Data - https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/federal-trade-commission-warns-data-brokers-about-the-uncontrolled-sale-of-raw-location-data/ interesting and important move by #FTC on #privacy here

#FTC orders #Intuit to stop pushing "free" software that isn't really free
#ConsumerProtection #watchdog's investigated how Intuit promoted its #tax preparation software #TurboTax as being a "free" including deceptive #ads shown during Super Bowl and the 2022 NCAA Basketball Tournament.
However, the ads were misleading as millions of Americans couldn't use Turbotax to file their taxes for free over the years, finding that it was all just a waste of time https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/ftc-orders-intuit-to-stop-pushing-free-software-that-isnt-really-free/

Big #news out of the #FTC today, as the agency bans a major location data company from tracking and selling info about people's medical visits.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/09/in-the-fight-over-abortion-rights-the-government-bans-its-first-company-from-tracking-medical-visits-00134510

#QR Codes Can Hide Deceptive Links From Identity Thieves, F.T.C. Warns

#Scammers have used #QR codes to steal personal information by imitating legitimate companies or sending deceptive emails and text messages, the Federal Trade Commission said.
#privacy #ftc

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/business/qr-code-scam-ftc.html

PolitiFact - Red light on ‘greenwashing’? US regulatory agency takes fresh look at deceptive climate claims https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/jul/17/red-light-on-greenwashing-us-regulatory-agency-tak/ #greenwashing #FTC #uslaw #uspol