A Blog About FTC regulations and happenings

In a ruling announced today, the Supreme Court held that online businesses can be subjected to sales tax even in states where they do not have any brick-and-mortar operations. The case, South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., overturns longstanding precedent requiring “physical presence” to subject a seller to state sales tax, representing a big change for… Read More

  On June 6, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a landmark ruling in LabMD v. Federal Trade Commission. While the Eleventh Circuit impliedly held that the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has authority to take enforcement action against companies whose unfair practices lead to data security incidents that pose… Read More

A public service announcement of yesteryear posed the following question to parents: “It’s 8:00. Do you know where your children are?” Today’s technology allows parents to answer that question regardless of the time of day. That technology, however, has recently drawn scrutiny for violating the parental notice and consent provisions of the Federal Trade Commission’s… Read More

The FTC is reported to be joining state and international regulators in examining Cambridge Analytica’s actions with data accessed from Facebook, including how the data analytics company obtained the information, what it did with the information, and whether Facebook complied with existing obligations, including a 2012 FTC consent decree. The situation underscores the importance of… Read More

In retrospect, it all seems so predictable. International capitalism creates virtual currencies. Banks are avoided. Millennials hail a new world order of anonymous or nearly untraceable market transactions. Numerous parties and exchanges hold on to large quantities of virtual currencies. But then the bad guys show up. And I’m not talking about the regulators. Last month, in what looks like the… Read More

In January, Bitcoin dropped to approximately 50% of its 2017 peak price.  Other digital currencies saw similar declines. Most market observers blamed these massive price fluctuations on related events: (i) widespread reports of fraud and price manipulation, and (ii) increasing prospects for the regulation of digital assets and currencies. Indeed, 2018 has brought us federal… Read More

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) is granted extraordinary authority to participate in ex parte discussions with judges, conduct investigations and enact enforcement actions like asset freezes and TROs without notice to the parties it is targeting. Often the first time a company learns it is under investigation is when it is served a subpoena and… Read More

In a paradox of sorts, cryptocurrency’s continued survival may hinge on its submission to greater regulatory oversight. Such a notion is paradoxical in the sense that cryptocurrency’s origins can be traced to a “stick it to the man” mentality in which currency is decentralized and not tied to any one governmental body. Thus, submitting to… Read More

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) is granted extraordinary authority to conduct investigations without giving notice to the companies in its sightlines, and the agency can enact sudden and unforeseen enforcement actions like asset freezes and TROs which take its targets completely by surprise. Often a company’s first clue it is under investigation is when it… Read More