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In the 2014 movie Ex Machina , a robot manipulates someone into freeing it from its confines, resulting in the person being confined instead. The robot was designed to manipulate that person’s emotions, and, oops, that’s what it did. While the scenario is pure speculative fiction, companies are always looking for new ways – such as the use of generative AI tools – to better persuade people and change their behavior. When that conduct is...

For many people, buying a franchise has proven to be a good choice, but like any other financial decision, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question “Is a franchise right for me?” Buying a franchise involves a major financial outlay and owning one often requires an “all in” lifestyle commitment. If you’re thinking about whether your future could be in a franchise, follow the FTC Business Blog for a series we ’re calling Franchise...

FTC staff has a prescription for certain eyewear prescribers: It’s time to focus on complying with the FTC’s Eyeglass Rule. Cease and desist letters went to 37 prescribers about whom the FTC received complaints of alleged violations of the Rule. The concerns? Did the office fail to automatically provide a patient with their eyeglass prescription immediately upon completion of their eyeglass exam? And did the office require the patient to pay a...

When consumers dispute the validity of a credit card charge, merchants may hire a “chargeback mitigation company” to dispute the consumer’s dispute. That’s the business of a company called Chargebacks911 – and the FTC and the Florida Attorney General have gone to court alleging the company is unfairly thwarting consumers’ efforts to challenge what consumers believe to be charges stemming from fraud, illegal business practices, or other...

Using their own colorful vocabulary, motocross devotees do their best to distance themselves from flat landing, roosting, and whiskey throttle. Something else many motocross, motorcycle, and all-terrain vehicle fans want to avoid: parts and equipment made in other countries , but imported into the United States already packaged with false “Made in USA” labels. That’s what the FTC alleges that North Carolina-based Cycra did, in violation of the...

To borrow a phrase the Supreme Court coined in a different context, if there is a “fixed star” in the consumer protection constellation, it’s the advertising substantiation doctrine. In place for decades and explained in a 1984 Policy Statement , the underlying legal requirement is clear: companies must have a reasonable basis to support their advertising claims before those claims are disseminated. Multiple litigated decisions have added detail...

For grieving consumers who have to make funeral or cremation arrangements for loved ones in other parts of the country, the internet can ease the burden of long-distance logistics – but not if companies violate the law. Last year, the Department of Justice filed suit on the FTC’s behalf, charging that Legacy Cremation Services, owner Anthony Joseph Damiano, and related companies targeted the bereaved with practices that violated the FTC Act and...

By any measure, this year has been extraordinary. Our litigation workload continues to expand, with eight cases in various stages of administrative or federal court litigation and three on appeal. The latest, in which a unanimous Commission authorized staff to block the merger of the two largest providers of home mortgage loan origination systems and other key lender software tools, is an enormous undertaking, involving several horizontal and...

Last year the Bureau of Competition created its own Criminal Liaison Unit (“CLU”) as part of a Commission initiative to expand its existing criminal referral program and protect the public from criminal conduct. Headed by two former DOJ Antitrust Division criminal prosecutors, the CLU works with other BC staff to identify and refer to criminal prosecutors conduct uncovered during the course of FTC investigations and litigations. While the FTC is...

Prenotification plans, continuity programs, automatic renewals, free-to-pay conversions. They’re all variations on the negative option theme. Under the right circumstances, those marketing methods can be convenient for consumers. But as decades of FTC law enforcement makes clear, when negative options are tainted with untruths, half-truths, and hidden strings, the impact on consumers can be, well, negative. That’s why the FTC is asking for public...