National Small Business Week: Resilient and resolute
By: Lesley Fair | Sep 24, 2020 9:56AM
It’s National Small Business Week, a time set aside annually to salute American’s 30 million small businesses – companies that employ almost half of the country’s private sector workforce. The special focus this year is on the resilience and resolve of entrepreneurs and workers as they battle back against the impact of the pandemic.
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FTC settles with VoIP service provider for role in illegal telemarketing operation
By: Lesley Fair | Sep 22, 2020 10:10AM
Oh, what a tangled web they weave,
When with telemarketing scams they do deceive.
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By: Lesley Fair | Sep 22, 2020 7:43AM
Data To Go: An FTC Workshop on Data Portability begins at 8:30 Eastern Time this morning, Tuesday, September 22, 2020.
Green Lights & Red Flags: FTC Rules of the Road for Business rocks on in Cleveland
By: Seena Gressin | Sep 21, 2020 12:03PM
Natives and fans heartily agree that “Cleveland Rocks!” That’s why the Federal Trade Commission and its Ohio partners are ready to roll with the next installment of Green Lights & Red Flags: FTC Rules of the Road for Business, set to make its online debut on October 29, 2020, from Cleveland.
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Faith, hype, and charity: Settlement offers tips for charities and fundraisers
By: Lesley Fair | Sep 16, 2020 12:07PM
Fundraiser Outreach Calling’s telephone pitches were persuasive. Generous Americans opened their hearts and wallets to fund personal care packs for hospitalized veterans, support services for women with breast cancer, “financial assistance for families of officers killed in the line of duty,” and other charitable programs – or so they thought.
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By: Lesley Fair | Sep 15, 2020 1:07PM
In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, the FTC alleged that Online Trading Academy made unsubstantiated mega-bucks promises about their purported investment training programs. According to the complaint – and the defendants’ own data – for most OTA customers, the only time they saw big money was as it flew out of their hands and into the defendants’ pockets.
FTC releases agenda for Data To Go virtual workshop
By: Kate White, Bureau of Consumer Protection, and Andrea Zach, Bureau of Competition | Sep 10, 2020 12:03PM
“Take out” takes on a whole new meaning when it involves your data. Consumers and industry members are giving more thought to the issue of data portability – the ability of consumers to move data (such as emails, contacts, calendars, financial information, health information, favorites, friends, or content posted on social media) from one service to another or to their own files. That’s the topic of a September 22, 2020, virtual event, Data To Go: An FTC Workshop on Data Portability.
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What’s on the regulatory review roll? FTC announces Franchise Rule workshop
By: Lesley Fair | Sep 4, 2020 1:36PM
Etymologists – the word origin people – trace “franchise” back to a mash-up of French terms meaning both “forthright expression” and “membership.” Five hundred years later and those two concepts remain intertwined in the FTC’s Franchise Rule. Join us virtually on November 10, 2020, as we host an online public event, Reviewing the Franchise Rule: An FTC Workshop.
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FTC moves to name TV real estate celebs Dean Graziosi and Scott Yancey in Nudge lawsuit
By: Lesley Fair | Sep 3, 2020 12:19PM
Last year the FTC and the Utah Division of Consumer Protection sued Nudge, LLC, and related companies and individuals, alleging they used bogus money-making claims to lure people into buying real estate training programs – a scheme the two agencies say ultimately took consumers for more than $400 million. Soon after that, the parties entered into a stipulated preliminary injunction.
$10 million ABCmouse settlement: Avoiding auto-renewal traps
By: Andrew Smith, Director, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection | Sep 2, 2020 12:10PM
Online subscription services can be a convenience for consumers and a boon for business – especially now that so many people are shopping from home. But under the law, companies have an obligation to explain the details of the deal up front, clearly disclose any automatic renewal terms, get consumers’ express consent before billing, and offer simple ways to cancel.
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BCP Business Center and Blog: Marking 10 years with something new
By: Lesley Fair | Sep 1, 2020 10:08AM
Tenth anniversaries are traditionally for tin. So we’re commemorating the tenth anniversary of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Business Center and Business Blog by doing some tin-kering that regular readers may have noticed. (Sorry. After a decade, the wordplay is second nature.)
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