: FTC announces first mobile app case wfg-adm109 August 15, 2011 | 9:41AM FTC announces first mobile app case By Lesley Fair There are some combinations that raise immediate compliance issues for responsible businesses — and kids’ privacy and mobile applications are among them. A settlement announced by the FTC — the agency’s first involving a mobile app — sends the important message that consumer protection laws and rules apply with full force in the mobile marketplace. W3 Innovations, which does business as Broken Thumbs Apps, develops and distributes mobile apps. Several of their apps, including the Emily’s Girl World, Emily’s Dress Up & Shop, and Emily’s Runway High Fashion apps, were directed to children and were marketed in the Games-Kids section of Apple’s App Store. The Emily apps, which had more than 50,000 downloads, allow kids to play games, create virtual models, and design outfits. The apps encouraged them to email Emily’s Blog with shouts-outs to friends or requests for advice. The Children’[...]
: Root, root root for the regions lfair September 24, 2018 | 2:03PM Root, root root for the regions By Andrew Smith, Director, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection T his year eight major league baseball teams are celebrating milestone anniversaries – and so are the FTC’s regional offices. In 1918, the Commission opened the first three of its regional offices. Today, eight regional offices continue to knock it out the park on behalf of America’s consumers. So it’s only fitting that on this momentous day we acknowledge the regional offices’ century of pennant-winning performances. According to the Commission’s 1918 Annual Report, “In order to expedite the greatly increased work of the Commission . . . small branch offices were established in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.” Over time, the FTC has added other locations for a current total of eight offices in seven regions. Regional staff work with the Bureau of Consumer Protection and the Bureau of Competition on investigations and litigation. But they are in [...]
: Brussels, 27 April – Today marks the 10th anniversary of the GDPR’s adoption, the first comprehensive data protection framework spanning an entire continent, establishing clear rights for individuals and obligations for organisations across Europe. The moment that led to the creation of the EDPB The GDPR led to the establishment of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) on 25 May 2018, replacing the Article 29 Working Party that was previously in charge of dealing with issues relating to the protection of personal data. The GDPR gave the Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) stronger enforcement powers and expanded the scope of their work from focusing mainly on national compliance complaints to routinely dealing with cross-border cases. In the past 10 years, the 31 European DPAs comprising the EDPB have worked together to ensure the consistent enforcement of the GDPR and a harmonised data protection approach across Europe. A key role in an evolving digital landscape Today, the GDPR is part of a broader an[...]
: Practice Fusion case suggests 6 health privacy pointers lfair June 8, 2016 | 9:01AM Practice Fusion case suggests 6 health privacy pointers By Lesley Fair Combine two of the most talked-about consumer protection topics – health privacy and consumer-generated online content – and what do you get? A proposed FTC settlement with Practice Fusion, the largest cloud-based electronic health records company in the country, and six compliance tips for others in the industry. One of San Francisco-based Practice Fusion’s primary products is an electronic records system for outpatient providers. In 2009, the company launched “Patient Fusion,” an online portal where patients whose providers were already using Practice Fusion could view or download their health information or transmit it to another provider. Patient Fusion also let patients send and receive secure messages from their providers. Fast forward several years and the company decided to expand Patient Fusion to include a public directory where current and prosp[...]
: Defendants behind a wide-ranging operation known as Growth Cave, including its co-CEOs, are permanently banned from marketing and selling business opportunities and credit repair programs as part of an FTC settlement to resolve allegations that their scheme cost consumers nearly $50 million. As part of that settlement, Growth Cave’s co-CEOs also will be required to liquidate millions of dollars’ worth of assets, including a multimillion-dollar house, to provide consumer redress. “On day one, the Trump-Vance FTC reprioritized combatting fraud that harms American markets. Today’s successful resolution demonstrates that the Commission is focused on protecting our markets from dishonest actors,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. The FTC sued Growth Cave in February 2025, alleging that consumers were deceived by false promises of significant income. Growth Cave allegedly offered numerous business opportunities, which regularly failed to deliver the promised results[...]
: In this Deconstructed video, we rebuilt Alcatraz Island entirely in 3D, piece by piece, to understand how Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary actually operated at its peak in the 1950s. We explore the Cellhouse building, the prison cells, the dining hall, the shower room, the hospital, the administration building, and the infamous dungeon of Alcatraz, breaking down the prison’s internal layout and layered security systems, even down to the complex mechanical system that controlled every cell door. We also examine what life inside was really like and how three inmates managed to escape.We also created a detailed cutaway poster inspired by the video, showing the entire island of Alcatraz and how its buildings were arranged, from the main cellhouse and yard to the guard towers and support structures across the rock.👉 Get the poster here, every order helps support the channel so we can keep creating projects like this: https://crowdmade.com/collections/deconstructed/products/deconstructed-alcatraz-poster-deconstructed[...]