Business Blog

Companies and consumers are talking in a different way these days about cannabidiol (CBD), a chemical compound derived from the cannabis plant. But even as the conversation changes, one thing remains the same. Before making claims about purported health effects of CBD products, advertisers need sound science to support their statements.

Had you asked yesterday, we would have said the largest financial remedy for violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule was $5.7 million. Today’s $170 million total monetary judgment against YouTube and its parent company Google raises the stakes when it comes to COPPA compliance. Filed jointly with the New York Attorney General’s Office, the record-breaking FTC settlement offers three primary takeaways for other companies.

Colleges are known for team sports, but it’s an unfortunate fact that consumer deception can be a team sport, too. A proposed FTC settlement with Career Education Corporation, American InterContinental University, Colorado Technical University, and related defendants alleges they used illegal game plans to lure consumers to their post-secondary and vocational schools.

We tell businesses it’s wise to disclose prices clearly. So it’s only right that we follow our own advice.

According to musical legend, a buddy of songwriter Jim Weatherly commented that his girlfriend was leaving on the “midnight plane to Houston.” The buddy was Lee Majors of Six Million Dollar Man fame and his girlfriend (and later wife) was actress Farrah Fawcett. Mr. Weatherly filed the phrase away and later used it as inspiration for his megahit, Midnight Train to Georgia.

The data that Facebook collects about its users could reveal a lot about users’ personalities. A company named Cambridge Analytica sure thought so. The FTC alleges Cambridge Analytica used false and deceptive tactics to harvest personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users – data later used to profile and target U.S. voters.

Patch your software. Segment your network. Monitor for intruders. According to tech experts, those are security basics for businesses of any size. But when you’re industry giant Equifax – a company in possession of staggering amounts of highly confidential information about more than 200 million Americans – it’s almost unthinkable not to implement those fundamental protections.

How do repair restrictions for tech devices, appliances, cars, etc., affect consumers and small businesses? What are the arguments for and against? And what’s the fix? Those are topics of Nixing the Fix: A Workshop on Repair Restrictions – and it’s set to start soon. At 12:30 ET today, you can watch the live webcast.

The FTC has been keeping a close watch on the Internet of Things since the Internet of Things became a thing to watch. That includes law enforcement actions against companies alleged to have sold vulnerable connected devices that put consumers’ sensitive information at risk. Affected devices could even become – in effect – zombies that do the bidding of malicious botnets that threaten the Internet.