Latest FTC news

Ring customers get $5.6 million in privacy breach settlement

The Federal Trade Commission is sending $5.6 million in refunds to Ring users whose private video feeds were accessed without consent by Amazon employees and contractors, or had their accounts and devices hacked because of insufficient security protections.
- Bill Toulas
- April 24, 2024
- 10:31 AM
- 1
Cerebral to pay $7 million settlement in Facebook pixel data leak case

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with telehealth firm Cerebral in which the company will pay $7,000,000 over allegations of mishandling people's sensitive health data.
- Bill Toulas
- April 16, 2024
- 05:37 PM
- 0
Former AT&T customers get $6.3 million in data throttling refunds

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is sending out $6,300,000 in partial refunds to 267,000 former AT&T Wireless customers as part of a data throttling settlement in 2019.
- Bill Toulas
- April 12, 2024
- 11:56 AM
- 0
FTC: Americans lost $1.1 billion to impersonation scams in 2023

Impersonation scams in the U.S. exceeded $1.1 billion in losses last year, according to statistics collected by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a figure that is three times higher than in 2020.
- Bill Toulas
- April 01, 2024
- 12:03 PM
- 1
FTC warns scammers are impersonating its employees to steal money

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warned today that scammers are impersonating its employees to steal thousands of dollars from Americans.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- March 19, 2024
- 03:19 PM
- 0
Tech support firms Restoro, Reimage fined $26 million for scare tactics

Tech support companies Restoro and Reimage will pay $26 million to settle charges that they used scare tactics to trick their customers into paying for unnecessary computer repair services.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- March 14, 2024
- 12:40 PM
- 1
FTC sues H&R Block over deceptive 'free' online filing ads

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued tax preparation giant H&R Block over the company's deceptive "free" online filing advertising and for pressuring people into overpaying for its services.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- February 23, 2024
- 05:13 PM
- 2
FTC to ban Avast from selling browsing data for advertising purposes

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will order Avast to pay $16.5 million and ban the company from selling the users' web browsing data or licensing it for advertising purposes.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- February 22, 2024
- 11:48 AM
- 1
FTC orders Blackbaud to boost security after massive data breach

Blackbaud has settled with the Federal Trade Commission after being charged with poor security and reckless data retention practices, leading to a May 2020 ransomware attack and a data breach affecting millions of people.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- February 01, 2024
- 05:23 PM
- 0
FTC orders Intuit to stop pushing "free" software that isn't really free

Today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered Intuit to stop promoting its software products and services as "free" unless they're actually free for all consumers.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- January 22, 2024
- 04:37 PM
- 3
FTC bans one more data broker from selling your location info

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues to target data brokers, this time in a settlement with InMarket Media, which bans the company from selling Americans' precise location data.
- Bill Toulas
- January 19, 2024
- 12:13 PM
- 0
FTC bans data broker from selling Americans’ location data

Today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) banned data broker Outlogic, formerly X-Mode Social, from selling Americans' raw location data that could be used for tracking purposes.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- January 09, 2024
- 03:32 PM
- 0
FTC offers $25,000 prize for detecting AI-enabled voice cloning

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has started accepting submissions for its Voice Cloning Challenge, a public competition with a $25,000 top prize for ideas that protect consumers from the danger of AI-enabled voice cloning for fraudulent activity.
- Bill Toulas
- January 04, 2024
- 09:30 AM
- 2
FTC orders non-bank financial firms to report breaches in 30 days

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has amended the Safeguards Rules, mandating that all non-banking financial institutions report data breach incidents within 30 days.
- Bill Toulas
- October 30, 2023
- 03:57 PM
- 0
FTC warns of ‘staggering’ losses to social media scams since 2021

The Federal Trade Commission says Americans have lost at least $2.7 billion to social media scams since 2021, with the real number likely many times larger due to unreported incidents.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- October 06, 2023
- 01:07 PM
- 1
Amazon agrees to $25 million fine for Alexa children privacy violations

The U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Amazon has agreed to pay a $25 million fine to settle alleged children's privacy laws violations related to the company's Alexa voice assistant service.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- July 21, 2023
- 08:02 AM
- 1
FTC: Amazon trapped millions into hard-to-cancel Prime memberships

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says Amazon allegedly used dark patterns to trick millions of users into enrolling in its Prime program and trapping them by making it as difficult as possible to cancel the automatically-renewing subscriptions.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- June 21, 2023
- 11:35 AM
- 6
Microsoft to pay $20 million for XBOX children privacy violations

Microsoft has agreed to pay a $20 million fine and change data privacy procedures for children to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges over Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) violations.
- Bill Toulas
- June 06, 2023
- 11:51 AM
- 0
Amazon faces $30 million fine over Ring, Alexa privacy violations

Amazon will pay $30 million in fines to settle allegations of privacy violations related to the operation of its Ring video doorbell and Alexa virtual assistant services.
- Sergiu Gatlan
- May 31, 2023
- 04:44 PM
- 2
FTC to ban BetterHelp from sharing mental health data with advertisers

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed to ban the online counseling service BetterHelp from sharing its customers' sensitive mental health data with advertising networks and marketers.
- Bill Toulas
- March 05, 2023
- 10:12 AM
- 0