Ftc News & Articles

It used to be that business on the Internet was a lot like Las Vegas. What happened there, stayed there. But over the past few years, the web has become a hub to online business, resulting in millions of online transactions, interactions and marketing campaigns. Businesses and marketers have become more savvy, and it’s become much harder to decipher fact from fiction.

Smartphones are booming with new features, powerful tools -- and a growing supply of privacy issues. To address this, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released a new report with recommendations for privacy standards and practices. 

 In June 2011, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it would begin examining Google for anti-competitive practices. Nearly two years later, the FTC announced what it found.
 

Google is expected to pay a governmental fine of US$ 22.5 million to settle charges that it bypassed privacy settings on Apple users’ Safari browsers, according to various news reports. The fine by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which would be the largest in that agency’s history, would amount to the technology giant’s revenue stream for five hours.

Being true to its settlement agreement with the FTC in March of last year, Google pre-announced yesterday a comprehensive update that consolidates some 60 privacy policy documents, plus a refresh of its terms of service agreement. Both are to begin March 1, but are available now for review online.

This policy shift is generating buzz online over concerns of privacy, search anonymity and control over just what information gets shared.

Facing challenges over its privacy practices -- or lack thereof -- Facebook is reportedly proposing a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

What do two former presidential candidates have in common? They are behind The Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011, which "establishes a framework to protect the personal information of all Americans both online and offline." Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced legislation this week that sought to define how companies should handle consumers' personal information both online and offline.

We’ve been following the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Track initiative and its progress in Congress. While its outcome is still not known and marketers and customers are still fighting it out over the privacy of their information, online businesses are scrambling to respond.

This week, the mobile enterprise addresses mobile advertising, privacy and the availability of Verizon iPhone 4.

Interested in how information about your online behaviors is collected? Forget Do Not Track or the Privacy Bill of Rights. Instead, look no further than the Advertising Option Icon, which lets consumers make informed choices about online privacy.

Will 2011 be the year that online advertising becomes more transparent? Thanks to a few key initiatives, consumers can expect to have better control over how their data is used online.

We’ve been contemplating the future of web publishing and journalism for sometime now, but recently the Federal Trade Commission decided to weigh in on the debate with a discussion paper that outlines potential policy recommendations to support the reinvention of journalism.

The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice are looking into the prospect of launching an antitrust inquiry against Apple (news, site) following the company’s ban of developers using non-Apple-sanctioned development tools, according to a story in the New York Post. Filing an inquiry doesn’t necessarily mean that charges would follow, the NYP reports.

Social media moves so fast, it's hard to keep up. Here are the week's top stories in scan-friendly format:

• 1.5 Million Facebook IDs For Sale
• Facebook Embracing Local Businesses
• Surprise! Students Are Addicted To Social Media
• FTC May Look Into Social Networking Regulations

Social media moves so fast, it's hard to keep up. Here are the week's top stories in scan-friendly format:

• Foursquare Posts Dramatic Growth
• Google and Privacy Concerns May Affect AdMob Deal
• Facebook Lands Inside Yahoo Mail
• Can Twitter Be A Sustainable Business?