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On November 17, 2014, TRUSTe and the FTC announced a proposed consent agreement after TRUSTe allegedly deceived consumers about its recertification program for the company’s privacy practices. TRUSTe is a corporation which offers several data privacy services to companies, including a variety of assessments and certifications, monitoring tools, and compliance controls. It also offers Certified […]

FTC accused online review site Yelp, Inc., and mobile app developer TinyCo, Inc to have improperly collected children’s information in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The companies agreed to settle. Yelp will pay a $450,000 civil penalty, while TinyCo will pay a $300,000 civil penalty. Related FTC’s press release here   Read more about […]

On April 7, 2014 a federal court held that FTC has the authority to bring unfair trade practice claims under the FTC Act for exposing consumers’ data to a security breach and need not issue formal regulations before. In the last ten years the FTC has brought many actions against entities for failing to safeguard […]

In January 2014 the Federal Trade Agency informed that twelve U.S. businesses agreed to settle after they falsely claimed to be abiding by the international privacy framework known as the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor. The U.S.-EU Safe Harbor enables U.S. companies to transfer consumer data between the United States and the European Union, in compliance with […]

114 Columbia Law Review 583 (2014) From the article’s abstract: “In this Article, we contend that the FTC’s privacy jurisprudence is functionally equivalent to a body of common law, and we examine it as such. We explore how and why the FTC, and not contract law, came to dominate the enforcement of privacy policies. A common view of […]

On November 20, 2012, the FTC bureau approved the proposed settlement according to which Google Inc. has agreed to pay $22.5 million civil penalty settling charges that it misrepresented privacy assurances to users of Apple Inc.’s Safari Internet browser. The settlement resolves allegations that Google made misrepresentations to Safari users about the placement of advertising […]

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) brought a complaint against Facebook, Inc for violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45 et seq. According to the FTC, Facebook has collected extensive “profile information” about its users violating the FTC Act on eight separate counts of unfair or deceptive acts. Specifically, the FTC found […]

On May 31, 2019, the District of Columbia Superior Court issued an order rejecting Facebook’s request to dismiss or to stay a data privacy litigation brought under a state consumer protection statute. The case is interesting because the order deals with the decision of a state court on the applicability of state general consumer protection […]

On June 19, 2018, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, provided an important reminder on when a communication can be considered privileged. According to the decision, a document is privileged depending on the purpose of the communications at issue. Before producing documents in a litigation, to maintain attorney-client privilege, counsel should determine […]

The House is voting today on a bill to repeal Obama Administration’s internet privacy rules. The Senate already voted last Thursday (March 23, 2017) to repeal those rules. The rules that protect consumers’ online activity (Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services” (81 Fed. Reg. 87274 (December 2, 2016) were passed last year […]