FTCWatch
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February 13, 2024
Energy and Commerce Chair McMorris Rodgers won’t seek reelection
House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers isn’t seeking reelection this year, leaving a vacancy at the top of the panel with oversight over the Federal Trade Commission.
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February 13, 2024
Privacy Corner: Markey continues push to protect kids online
Nearly 30 years ago, Ed Markey helped pass the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Since then, the Massachusetts senator hasn’t stopped working to bolster the law that bars companies from collecting data from anyone under 13 without parental consent.
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February 13, 2024
On the Shelf: A company law enforcers love and civil libertarians loathe
In the burgeoning field of facial recognition, advances to technology help law enforcement but threaten individual liberties. New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill tackles the story of one of the industry’s most interesting players in “Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup’s Quest to End Privacy As We Know It.”
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February 13, 2024
Scammers troll job market, feds warn
The Federal Trade Commission warned virtual scams have taken a “personal — and persuasive — turn” in targeting job seekers and college students.
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February 13, 2024
Democratic senators want bigger clampdown on algorithmic price-fixing
Under two bills introduced by Democratic lawmakers, companies that use algorithms to fix prices would be penalized.
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February 13, 2024
People
Maier elected Axinn managing partner
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February 13, 2024
Meta filing details global data-protection risks, youth-data concerns
Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 to be the “year of efficiency” for Meta Platforms. The social media giant’s new annual securities filing makes clear it was also the year of unprecedented data-protection regulatory risk.
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February 13, 2024
Scholars criticize theory used to weaken administrative state
Conservatives who want to limit the power of agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission rely partially on a theory of presidential power that doesn’t follow the intent of the nation’s founders, according to two prominent legal scholars.
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January 30, 2024
More elite universities settle price-fixing lawsuit
Five elite universities have agreed to pay $104.5 million to settle a class action alleging they schemed to limit financial aid, which deprived some students of needed assistance.
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January 30, 2024
Wright amends suit against sexual harassment accusers
Joshua Wright, a former Federal Trade Commission member, has amended a defamation complaint against two former students and colleagues who accused him of sexual harassment.
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January 30, 2024
Calendar
Feb. 13 — The Federal Trade Commission will hold a virtual public hearing on its proposed rule banning fake reviews and testimonials. The hearing will be held at 10 a.m. ET. For more information, go to: https://www.ftc.gov.
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January 30, 2024
Khan gets top secret clearances for staff
The Federal Trade Commission has obtained the highest security clearances for additional agency employees, with an eye toward protection of consumer data.
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January 30, 2024
QR code scams cause growing concern
Scammers use QR codes, the square bar codes that can be scanned and read by smartphones, to trick consumers. The Federal Trade Commission has put wrongdoers on notice.
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January 30, 2024
Medical device ad oversight lacks resources, FTC says
The Federal Trade Commission says resource constraints limit its oversight of direct-to-consumer advertising of medical devices, a function the agency shares with the Food and Drug Administration.
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January 30, 2024
People
Meador joins Heritage
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January 30, 2024
DOJ joins antitrust lawsuit against NCAA Rule
The Department of Justice has joined 10 states and the District of Columbia in a civil antitrust lawsuit challenging the National Collegiate Athletics Association’s (NCAA) Transfer Eligibility Rule.
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January 30, 2024
Intuit can’t say ‘free’ without noting eligibility requirements
The Federal Trade Commission said Intuit engaged in deceptive advertising by calling its tax products and services “free” despite many consumers being ineligible.
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January 30, 2024
JetBlue-Spirit ruling a major win for DOJ, with nuggets of favorable case law for defendants
A federal judge’s opinion blocking JetBlue and Spirit’s merger is the second win in a Clayton Act merger challenge for the Department of Justice under the Biden administration — and while it's a clear victory on the facts, there are nuggets of legal findings that could aid defendants in the long run.
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January 30, 2024
Neil Averitt commentary: What to do when the acquiring company is a looter
Can merger law be used to stop looters and other bad actors from acquiring corporations? That would be a step into a significantly new world, but two cases in the past year, one from each antitrust agency, have laid a foundation from which a reasonable argument can be made.
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January 30, 2024
Disclose celebrities’ ad compensation, law professor urges
A Pepperdine University law professor says the Federal Trade Commission should require disclosure of how much money highly-paid celebrities receive for endorsements.
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January 30, 2024
Location-data industry practices, not just a few bad apples, in FTC’s crosshairs
InMarket Media joined X-Mode Social as the latest data brokers to face a painful enforcement action from the Federal Trade Commission over location data for peddling the latitude, longitude and timestamp records of when people used their mobile phones. These two data broker orders are unlikely to be the agency’s last.
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January 30, 2024
On the Shelf: The progressives increasingly driving the Democratic Party bus
The rise of the neo-Brandeisian movement in antitrust is part of a broader effort to steer the Democratic Party away from its longstanding support of business-friendly policies. While that approach worked for many years, recently Democrats ran into a problem: voters didn’t like it.
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January 30, 2024
Halting risky deals easier than unscrambling them later, FTC's Sussman says
Unwinding a problematic merger once it has already stifled competition requires far more time, money and labor from federal antitrust agencies than enforcers would have needed to block a transaction in its infancy, a Federal Trade Commission official said, adding that the cost of "missing" a merger is “significant.”
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January 30, 2024
FTC pauses CARS Rule effective date
The Federal Trade Commission postponed the effective date of the Combatting Auto Retail Scams Rule while a legal challenge against the rule is pending.
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January 16, 2024
FTC inspector general calls for invoice review process
The Federal Trade Commission’s inspector general recommended the agency implement a formal process for invoice review approval and payment of high-risk contracts, saying the invoice system “falls short of a formalized, ongoing monitoring system.”