Business Blog

Years ago, a TV network repackaged the summer rerun season with the brilliant tagline, “If you haven't seen it, it's new to you!” Going through this year’s Business Blog posts, we spotted the 10 most-read topics of 2014. Others in your industry are up on the latest. Are you?

Listed alphabetically, here's what business people were reading.

On the “Evaluate your options carefully before trying this at home” list, how about adding the do-it-yourself removal of moles, skin tags, and warts, including genital warts. That's one message to take from a just-announced FTC settlement, but the case also offers insights for companies that feature consumer endorsements in their ads or use affiliate marketing programs.

Some of the apps offered by China-based BabyBus teach kids the fundamentals of the alphabet. Correspondence just sent to BabyBus by the FTC staff focuses on five of those letters:  C-O-P-P-A.

The FTC’s status as an independent agency, secured in an early constitutional challenge to the FTC Act, was tested during the early years of the Cold War when the agency’s international work provoked a national security debate at the highest levels.

It’s called human chorionic gonadotropin and it’s a hormone produced by the human placenta – which explains why marketers call it HCG when advertising it for weight loss. The FTC just settled a second case against a company that pitched homeopathic HCG drops as an easy way to drop the pounds.

From a patient’s perspective, it was one of those “It seemed like a good idea at the time” innovations: a free online portal that lets people view their billing history with a number of different healthcare providers. But according to the FTC, Atlanta-based PaymentsMD, LLC and former CEO Michael C. Hughes signed consumers up for their service and then went on a medical information scavenger hunt without their permission.