: Press release23 juillet 2026Today, the European Commission took two decisions finding non-compliance by Google with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for self-preferencing its own services on Google Search, and for putting in place restrictions on businesses to direct consumers to alternative, often cheaper, purchase channels on Google Play
: The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Illusory Systems Inc. for failing to implement adequate data security measures, leading to a major security breach in which hackers stole $186 million from consumers. Under a proposed order settling the FTC’s allegations, Utah-based Illusory, which does business as Nomad, will be required to implement an information security program to address numerous alleged security failures and to return recovered money to affected consumers. “The FTC Act requires companies to take reasonable security measures,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “It’s important that companies live up to their security promises to consumers.” In its complaint , the FTC alleged that Nomad prominently touted its security in its advertising, claiming that it offered “security-first” services. The FTC, however, alleged that the company failed to live up to these promises by failing to: use secure coding practices; implement processes for recei[...]
: The Federal Trade Commission, joined by five states, today notified the court that it will file a stipulated order that resolves its litigation against Zillow and Redfin and restores competition in the online platforms that renters use to find apartments and property managers use to list rentals. The order eliminates the key term in a 2025 agreement between Zillow and Redfin under which Zillow paid Redfin $100 million for Redfin to shut down its internet listing services (ILS) business, exclusively repost apartment listings provided by Zillow, transition its customers to Zillow and stay out of the ILS market for up to nine years. The order also requires Redfin to reenter the ILS market with far more apartment listings and to make enforceable commitments to invest millions of dollars to ensure Redfin will be a far stronger competitor than it was before the 2025 agreement. Restoring competition in the ILS market is expected to drive down costs and spur innovation that benefits renters and property management [...]
: Data security settlement with service provider includes updated order provisions lfair June 12, 2019 | 11:39AM Data security settlement with service provider includes updated order provisions By Lesley Fair The domino principle. The ripple effect. The butterfly phenomenon. Apply the analogy of your choice to describe what happens when one software developer ’s allegedly lax security practices result in the breach of confidential customer information maintained by multiple businesses that use the software. If your business is a service provider – or if your company uses third-party service providers to help manage your data – a proposed FTC settlement merit s your attention. One notable aspect of the case: a proposed order that includes new data security requirements reflecting the current Commission priority of updating its data security orders. Many third-party service providers sell industry-specific data management software to consumer-facing businesses. One example is DealerBuilt, software for auto deale[...]
: The Federal Trade Commission will prohibit data broker Kochava and its subsidiary from selling, sharing or disclosing sensitive location data without consumers’ affirmative express consent to settle allegations the companies sold location data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that could be used to trace the movements of individuals. The FTC sued Idaho-based Kochava in August 2022 alleging that its collection, use and disclosure of precise location data invaded consumers’ privacy by revealing their movements, including visits to sensitive locations such as health facilities and places of worship. The FTC alleged that because consumers were unaware of and did not consent to this data sharing, consumers had no way of avoiding the harm resulting from its collection and disclosure. Under the proposed order resolving the FTC’s litigation, Kochava and its subsidiary, Collective Data Solutions (CDS), which has taken over Kochava’s data broker business, will be prohibited from selling, licensing, tran[...]
: Ticket broker Elite Events and its operators will pay $300,000 in civil penalties to resolve Federal Trade Commission allegations that the firm purchased millions of dollars’ worth of tickets to high-demand events by illegally circumventing measures designed to limit the number of tickets that can be purchased to a single event. In a complaint , the FTC alleged that Elite Events and Tickets LLC, which also does business as Smart Scalpers or smartscalpers.com, and its owners, Kevin W. McKerley and Aaron L. Fera, violated the Better Online Ticket Sales Act. That law makes it illegal for any person to “circumvent a security measure, access control system, or other technological control or measure on an Internet website or online service that is used by the ticket issuer to enforce posted event ticket limits or to maintain the integrity of posted online ticket purchasing order rules.” The complaint alleged Elite Events used a variety of unlawful tactics to bypass ticket purchasing limits for more than 2,400 diff[...]
: Today, 22 states joined the Federal Trade Commission in filing suit against Amazon, alleging that the company engaged in deceptive and unfair practices that secretly inflated prices in its online search advertising auctions. The complaint alleges that, for over seven years, Amazon has covertly and substantially increased the prices that more than one million brands and sellers were required to pay to advertise on its platform. As a result, the complaint alleges that Amazon’s scheme has likely extracted tens of billions of dollars from its unwitting advertising customers. “When one of the world’s largest online retailers engages in unfair and deceptive conduct, the impact can be staggering,” said Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson. “Amazon has millions of advertising customers who were misled into paying significantly higher prices. These higher costs were largely passed on to American consumers. The FTC under President Trump won’t allow this deception to continue.” The FTC, along with the attorneys general of Ala[...]
: The Federal Trade Commission will require Cox Media Group (CMG) and two smaller marketing firms to pay a total of $930,000 to settle allegations they deceived customers by falsely claiming to offer an AI-powered service that could target localized ads based on conversations captured from consumers’ smart devices and that consumers had opted into such targeting. In three separate complaints, the FTC alleged that Georgia-based media and marketing company CMG Media Corporation, which does business as Cox Media Group , and two marketing firms it worked with, New Hampshire-based MindSift LLC and Wisconsin-based 1010 Digital Works LLC , deceived customers by claiming they used a special algorithm to listen in on and detect pertinent conversations from smart devices in order to target ads to consumers within a specific geographic region. Contrary to these companies’ claims, however, the marketing service wasn’t based on voice data and consumers hadn’t opted into this service. “Not only did the product these compani[...]
: The Federal Trade Commission announced today that is considering whether to update its Rule on Impersonation of Government and Businesses or take other action to prevent online platforms from engaging in ad-optimization practices that may be furthering impersonation scams. In an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) to be published in the Federal Register , the FTC is seeking comment on the extent to which ad-optimization tools and services offered by social media, search engines and other digital marketplace platforms further efforts by scammers to impersonate legitimate businesses and government agencies using online ads. “Free markets depend on trust, transparency and consumers’ ability to make informed choices. Impersonation scams—especially when amplified by digital platforms that profit from them—do more than rob Americans of their hard-earned money,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “They erode the very foundation that allows competitive markets[...]