Legal Library: Cases and Proceedings

Cognosphere has agreed to pay $20 million and to block children under 16 from making in-game purchases without parental consent to settle FTC allegations the company violated a children’s privacy law and deceived children and other users about the real costs of in-game transactions and odds of obtaining rare prizes.

Announcing settlement with IntelliVision Technologies over allegations that the company made false claims about its AI-powered facial recognition software.

FTC finalized order against IntelliVision Technologies Corp., settling allegations that the company made false, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims that its AI-powered facial recognition software was free of gender or racial bias.

The Federal Trade Commission ordered building services contractor Planned Building Services and its affiliated companies to cease their enforcement of no-hire agreements that limit the ability of residential and commercial building owners from hiring building service workers employed by Planned.

In a complaint issued in November 2024, the FTC charged that Sitejabber deceived consumers by misrepresenting that ratings and reviews it published came from customers who experienced the reviewed product or service, artificially inflating average ratings and review counts. Under a proposed order settling the agency’s complaint, Sitejabber will be prohibited from making such misrepresentations and from making other misrepresentations about consumer ratings or reviews. The Commission approved the consent as final in January 2025. 

The Federal Trade Commission sued the largest U.S. distributor of wine and spirits—Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, LLC (Southern)—alleging the company violated the Robinson-Patman Act, harming small, independent businesses by depriving them of access to discounts and rebates, and impeding their ability to compete against large national and regional chains. This loss of competition ultimately harms consumers on choice and price.

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against a Georgia-based debt collector that tricked consumers into paying more than $7.6 million in bogus debt by threatening them with jail time, harassing their family members, and other unlawful actions.

In response to a federal court complaint filed against Global Circulation, Inc. (GCI) and its owner, Kenneth Redon, III, the court agreed to temporarily halt the company’s operation and ordered it to turn its assets over to a court-appointed receiver.

In 2025, the FTC filed an amended complaint alleging that GCI and Redon falsely claimed affiliation with specific lenders to trick consumers into paying, a violation of the FTC’s Impersonation Rule.

At the same time, the FTC filed a proposed settlement order that would permanently ban GCI and Redon from the debt collection business. 

In January 2023, the FTC issued an order requiring Ohio-based LCA-Vision, doing business as LasikPlus and Joffe MediCenter, to pay $1.25 million for using deceptive bait-and-switch advertising to trick consumers into believing they could have their vision corrected for less than $300. The order also bans the defendants from making the misrepresentations detailed in the complaint. The Commission approved the final consent order in March 2023. In October 2024, the FTC announced it was returning $1.1 million to defrauded consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission has taken action against Instant Brands, manufacturer of Pyrex-brand kitchen and home products, for falsely claiming that all its popular glass measuring cups were made in the United States during a time some measuring cups were imported from China. The FTC’s proposed order against Instant Brands would stop the company from making deceptive claims about products being “Made in USA” and require them to pay a monetary judgment.

The Federal Trade Commission is sending more than $88,000 in refunds to consumers who bought Chinese-made measuring cups marketed as “Made in USA” by Instant Brands, the maker of Pyrex-brand kitchen and home products.

The FTC reached a settlement with 1Health.io over allegations that it left sensitive genetic and health data unsecured, deceived consumers about their ability to get their data deleted and changed its privacy policy retroactively without adequately notifying and obtaining consent from consumers whose data the company had already collected.

The Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint and authorized a federal court lawsuit to block Illumina’s $7.1 billion proposed acquisition of Grail—a maker of a non-invasive, early detection liquid biopsy test that can screen for multiple types of cancer in asymptomatic patients at very early stages using DNA sequencing. Illumina is the only provider of DNA sequencing that is a viable option for these multi-cancer early detection, or MCED, tests in the United States.

The complaint alleges the proposed acquisition will diminish innovation in the U.S. market for MCED tests, which could be used to detect up to 50 types of cancer. Most of these types of cancer are not screened for at all today, and the MCED test could save millions of lives around the world. The trial began on Aug. 24, 2021. On May 20, 2021, the FTC authorized staff to dismiss its federal court complaint for Preliminary Injunction and Temporary Restraining Order.

In April 2023, the Commission issued an opinion and order reversing the Administrative Law Judge’s dismissal of the proceeding and requiring Illumina to divest Grail. In June 2023, Illumina petitioned the Fifth Circuit to review the Commission’s order and opinion, and the Fifth Circuit heard arguments in the case in September 2023.  

On December 15, 2023, the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion in the case finding that there was substantial evidence supporting the Commission’s ruling that the deal was anticompetitive. The Fifth Circuit vacated the Commission’s order and remanded it for further proceedings based on the standard the Commission applied when reviewing one aspect of Illumina’s rebuttal evidence. On December 17, 2023, Illumina then announced it would divest Grail.

InMarket Media will be prohibited from selling or licensing any precise location data to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the company did not fully inform consumers and obtain their consent before collecting and using their location data for advertising and marketing.