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Not too long ago, talking on the phone, listening to music, and playing games required three clunky pieces of equipment. Manage that wirelessly? Fuhgeddaboutit. But now we can do all that — and more — with a device smaller than a chocolate bar. That took phenomenal feats of technology. But it also took some ground rules to make sure companies had incentives to innovate and consumers could be assured what they bought would work glitch-free with...

Some sports fans spend Saturdays on the field. For the rest of us, raising a Big Foam Finger is exertion enough. But we’ve all read stories about the dangers that head injuries pose to participants in contact sports. That’s why the FTC is continuing to raise concerns about possibly unsubstantiated claims for products advertised to reduce the risk of sports concussions. The FTC just finalized a settlement first announced in August against...

Every business generates paper destined for the circular file. But if documents contain sensitive information, don’t toss them out in a way that could invite unauthorized access. According to the FTC’s lawsuit against PLS Financial Services, PLS Group, and The Payday Loan Store of Illinois, loan applications, credit reports, and other confidential paperwork found their way into dumpsters near the defendants’ locations. The settlement applies just...

Call them contrepreneurs — marketers who use hyped-up promises to sell business opportunities to people eager to be their own boss. As part of a federal-state blitz on bogus bizopps, the FTC announced seven law enforcement actions and developments in five other cases against outfits the agency says used illegal tactics to take more than half a billion dollars from two million Americans trying to make ends meet in a challenging economy. The...

Some things you’d expect to find in a trash can: last night’s potato peelings, the casserole that looked so promising in the cookbook photo, and Oscar the Grouch. But if you run a business, the one thing you don’t want in the dumpster behind your office is paperwork containing sensitive information about your customers. Just ask PLS Financial Services, PLS Group, and the Payday Loan Store of Illinois. PLS Group owns about two dozen companies...

The biggest decision facing a DIYer in the paint store used to be whether Dusting of Snow or Wistful Beige was right for the dining room. But nowadays more businesses are making express claims about their products, including purported environmental benefits. Two of the nation’s leading paint companies — The Sherwin-Williams Company and PPG Architectural Finishes, Inc. — advertised that some of their paints were free of volatile organic compounds...

Paranoid delusion from 80s R&B artist Rockwell? Not necessarily, if he had used a computer from a rent-to-own store. Because according to lawsuits filed by the FTC, many stores — including franchisees of Aaron’s, ColorTyme, and Premier Rental Purchase — spied on their customers through secret software that logged key strokes, captured screen shots, and in some cases, remotely activated the computer’s webcam to take pictures of people in their...

"Hey, I've never met you. So don't get clever . T hat's my number. Robocall me never." When consumers are struggling with their finances, is there anything worse than getting solicitations from debt settlement outfits deceptively promising to reduce their unsecured debt by 50% or more? Actually, there is something worse. According to a lawsuit filed by the FTC, it’s when those bogus claims are conveyed via illegal (and annoying) robocalls to...