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Tech@FTC

Ethics FAQs for FTC technologists

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The Federal Trade Commission is aggressively hiring Technologists to help drive the agency’s work, ensure a vibrant technology marketplace, conduct investigations, and hold companies and people who...
Tech@FTC

It’s time for a FTC Blockchain Working Group

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Today, the FTC announced a lawsuit against four individuals alleging that they have promoted one or more fraudulent “chain referral schemes.” Such schemes are not new – in fact, the FTC has brought...
Tech@FTC

How the FTC keeps up on technology

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Because the FTC’s consumer protection and competition missions cut across so many technology industries, some call it the “Federal Technology Commission.” With only a few exceptions, the FTC protects...
Tech@FTC

Time to rethink mandatory password changes

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Data security is a process that evolves over time as new threats emerge and new countermeasures are developed. The FTC’s longstanding advice to companies has been to conduct risk assessments, taking...
Tech@FTC

Privacy trade-offs in retail tracking

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Figure 1 Identifying customers that visit multiple retail locations for the same store(Source: Fast Company, “Here’s What Brick-And-Mortar Stores See When They Track You”) Last week, the FTC announced...
Tech@FTC

Does Hashing Make Data “Anonymous”?

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One of the most misunderstood topics in privacy is what it means to provide “anonymous” access to data. One often hears references to “hashing” as a way of rendering data anonymous. As it turns out...