Items tagged with FTC
Like consumers, the Federal Trade Commission is fed up with device makers taking steps to make their wares difficult to fix at home or by independent shops. In a new report submitted to Congress, the FTC outlined numerous types of repair restrictions that make fixing gadgets overly difficult, like limiting the...
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Breaking a phone can be a nightmare of an ordeal, with replacement parts sometimes being absurdly expensive and repairing difficult or downright annoying. Sometimes, you cannot even use a local repair shop for fixing devices as it must go to the manufacturer lest you break some warranty-voiding clause in the end-user...
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Facebook has long been suspected of anti-competitive practices. Forty-eight states and territories and the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have now filed twin lawsuits against Facebook to address this issue. Facebook has responded to these lawsuits by stating that it is ready to fight against what it...
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Earlier this month, a U.S. Appeals Court ruled in favor of Qualcomm following an FTC antitrust lawsuit. Qualcomm was cleared after "no evidence" of anticompetitive behavior was found, and the company's $5 billion a year licensing business was left unscathed. Now, car and tech companies are up in arms, requesting that...
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Qualcomm is tasting sweet redemption this week after a U.S. Appeals Court ruled in its favor regarding a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit alleging it had violated antitrust laws. At the center of the lawsuit was Qualcomm's licensing business, which is a huge source of revenue for the company (this revenue amounted to...
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Tax season is upon us, and one thing nobody wants to deal with is getting audited. In a sense, however, that is what some major tech corporations have to deal with, as the Federal Trade Commission announced it is looking into hundreds of prior acquisitions made by Alphabet (including Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook...
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AT&T is finally facing the music with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for its "Unlimited Data" practices – to the tune of $60 million -- 8 years after it first fleeced customers. The problem lies in the fact that AT&T marketed its smartphone plans as having unlimited data, but instead began to throttle customer's...
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There is no doubt that the deal struck between Apple and Amazon to sell the former's iPhone and other products on the latter's online retail platform had a negative impact on some marketplace sellers. To what extent, however, is something the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is now investigating, which could potentially...
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The day of reckoning has come for Equifax for a massive data breach two years ago, but for consumers hoping for more than a slap on a wrist, prepare yourself for disappointed. Equifax's penalty for failing to secure private information belonging to around 147 million Americans is a fine totaling at least $575 million...
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Facebook is no stranger to privacy and security issues; it seems at every turn, a new report is surfacing that claims that some new mishandling of user data has taken place. The most significant privacy outcry Facebook has taken on, happened last year with the Cambridge Analytica fiasco that landed CEO Mark Zuckerberg...
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D-Link is finally coming to terms with a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit that was brought against it for serious lapses in security in its networking products. The FTC alleged in its lawsuit that D-Link had left its customers vulnerable to hacks by improperly securing its hardware, not following best practices...
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Qualcomm shares soared when it was announced that it had reached a multi-year deal with Apple to settle the pair's long-running global patent licensing fight. Today, Qualcomm shares are heading the opposite direction after a U.S. judge ruled that the company's patent licensing practices are both unlawful and...
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has hit Office Depot with a $25 million fine for its part in an expansive scheme to trick customers into paying for oftentimes unnecessary computer repairs. Office Depot used software provided by Support.com to in effect lie to customers about the existence of viruses and malware on...
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Facebook had an incredibly rough 2018. The company was rocked by the Cambridge Analytica scanda lthat it initially tried to suppress, but eventually made its way to the light of day. Cambridge Analytica was able to access personal details on nearly 90 million of Facebook customers without their permission.
Facebook...
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Back in 2017, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a suit against Qualcomm alleging antitrust violations, and only reached trial this week. Odds are that even if the FTC wins the suit against Qualcomm, and licensing fees and royalties that smartphone makers are charged decreased, the smartphone makers would...
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Phishing attacks have become one of the most common methods of scamming unsuspecting people out of something - usually money. We may all think we have our guards up to all forms of attacks, but when they can hit us through every form of communication, it's bound to happen to someone.
In a recent series of phishing...
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The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has agreed to investigate the practice of "loot boxes" in video games following a formal request by Senator Maggie Hassan. She had brought up the issue earlier this year, noting that most of her fellow members agreed at the time that loot boxes could use some additional...
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Vizio is one of the more popular smart TV makers in the U.S. thanks in part to decent specs and low prices. However, the TV maker found itself in hot water with the FTC in early 2017 over the practice of collecting TV user viewing data without the express permission of the users. While this happened over a year ago...
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The backlash against the FCC has been stiff ever since the regulatory agency voted to eliminate the rules back in May 2017. Protestors tried everything to get the FCC to go back on its decision to eliminate the rules, include a “Break the Internet” day but the FCC has plowed on. This year the U.S. Senate voted to...
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Facebook users who are concerned about their privacy may need to worry about more than the apps that they or their friends download. The social media giant purportedly gave over sixty smartphone developers access to Facebook users’ information. Corporations such as Apple, Samsung, Amazon, BlackBerry, and Microsoft...
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It didn't take long for Nintendo to bow down to pressure from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with regards to its warranty practices. Back in April, we reported that the FTC has deemed "Warranty Voice if Removed" stickers to be illegal and said that it had warned six companies about anti-consumer warranty...
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Last month, the FTC stepped up and said that those "Warranty Void if Removed" stickers were totally illegal and ran afoul of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. The FTC is now back and is telling six companies that they are in violation, giving the firms 30 days to clean up their acts or face potential legal...
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