Tag Archives: ftc

What you can do to stop robocalls and spam texts

It’s not your imagination. Robocalls and texts really are flooding your mobile phone with scams, spam and attempts to swindle. Americans received 2.4 million unwanted calls every month last year, according to a report by the Federal Communications Commission. That’s about 1 million more every month than in 2015. Sadly, ridding the world of these …

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Equifax hack may shake up US consumer data laws

There’s nothing like a disaster to prompt a call for change.In early October, Congress grilled Equifax’s former CEO, Richard Smith, in four separate committee hearings about how his credit reporting agency put the consumer records of over 145 million people in jeopardy.How bad was the hack? Pretty bad. We’ll be feeling the effects for “essentially a hundred years, until everybody …

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Qualcomm smacked by $773M antitrust fine in Taiwan

Taiwan is the latest country to slap an antitrust fine on Qualcomm, the world’s largest provider of chips for phones and other mobile devices. The island nation’s Fair Trade Commission said Wednesday that it had fined the US-based company $773 million, Bloomberg reported. Qualcomm has a monopoly on patents for certain crucial mobile phone technologies, and it violated local laws …

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Uber app on iOS could have recorded your screen

Uber’s iOS app had the ability to record users’ screens, and anything on them, such as passwords or messages, security researchers told Gizmodo on Thursday.  The ride-hailing company has permission from Apple to build that ability into the app, and the researchers said Uber’s was the only app on the App Store that appeared to have that permission. The capability was …

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Lenovo, FTC settle over Superfish adware

Lenovo reached a settlement Tuesday with the US Federal Trade Commission, ending two-and-a-half-year dispute over the Chinese company preinstalling problematic advertising software in hundreds of thousands of its laptops. Thirty-two state attorneys general joined the FTC settlement, with the states getting a $3.5 million settlement from Lenovo. The FTC accused Lenovo, one of the world’s largest PC makers, of preinstalling ad software …

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Amazon

It looks like Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market is all but in the bag as federal regulators said they would allow the $13.7 billion deal to continue. The decision, announced Wednesday by the US Federal Trade Commission, allows the online retail giant to take its greatest stab yet at the $800 billion US grocery market. By far Amazon’s biggest …

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Privacy experts file FTC complaint against Google

Privacy advocates aren’t satisfied with Google’s assurances that it’s protecting consumer privacy when it tracks the success of online ad campaigns into ringing up sales in physical stores. On Monday, the advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a formal complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission that asks the agency to begin an investigation into Google’s “in-store tracking algorithm.” The …

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FCC vs. robocalls: The battle heats up

Now playing: Watch this: How to stop robocalls 2:42 People with landline home phones have long suffered unwanted marketing calls. Now these spam calls have made their way to our mobile phones in a big way. Robocalls to cell phones are illegal, so why am I still getting so many unwanted calls? Detroit Free Press If you’ve noticed a surge …

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Qualcomm, FTC antitrust lawsuit will rage on

Qualcomm’s legal battle with the Federal Trade Commission will carry on.  A US federal judge ruled against Qualcomm’s motion to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit filed by the FTC, the Wall Street Journal reported late Monday. The suit alleges that Qualcomm used its power and position in the industry to extract high royalties from phone manufacturers and to weaken rivals. Qualcomm argued that …

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FTC moves to block DraftKings

The Federal Trade Commission is trying to block the merger of the two biggest daily fantasy sports websites. The regulator said Monday the combined company would control more than 90 percent of the US market for paid daily fantasy sports contents. The FTC, along with the Offices of the Attorneys General in California and the District of Columbia, will file …

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