The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has granted Google permission to acquire Nest Labs. Google and Nest announced the deal last month. Google is acquiring the company, which makes smart home devices like smoke detectors and thermostats, for $3.2 billion in…
Will Lawmakers Use The Target Hack To Give The FTC More Power?
Target, one of the nation’s largest retailers, suffered a major security breach over the holiday shopping season that affected millions of its in-store customers. In fact, it’s estimated that 40 million dedit and card card accounts were stolen. It’s already…
Native Advertising Consumption Has Jumped 44% Over The Last Few Months
As previously reported, the FTC held a workshop on the topic of native advertising this week called “Blurred Lines: Advertising or Content”. The Commission warned publishers and advertisers that some of these ads may be illegal, and encouraged them to…
FTC Warns Publishers About Illegal Native Advertising
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission held a workshop on native advertising on Wednesday called “Blurred Lines: Advertising or Content”. The workshop was designed to examine the practice of blending sponsored stories in with editorial content, and brought together publishing and…
Consumer Watchdog Complains About Google Again
Frequent Google critic Consumer Watchdog (the ones behind the legendary Eric Schmidt evil ice cream man video) has filed a new formal complaint against Google with the Federal Trade Commission. This time it’s about Google Shopping results. The organization calls…
Google Privacy Changes Draw Suspicion, Senator Pens Letter to FTC
One U.S. Senator wants the Federal Trade Commission to take another look at Google, this time for privacy changes the company announced last week that will allow them to use your name and face in advertisements. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA)…
Nomorobo to the Robocall Rescue!
The latest tool in the battle against solicitor calls is Nomorobo, which went live as of yesterday. The goal of ‘no more robo’ is ultimately preventing robocalls, those calls that the FTC Do-Not-Call lists were supposed to take care of…
Google’s Waze Deal Won’t Face Antitrust Issues [REPORT]
Google looks to be in the clear concerning their recent acquisition of Israel-based navigation company Waze, according to a report from Bloomberg. They cite sources familiar with the matter who say that antitrust regulators will not challenge Google on the…
Should The Government Regulate Paid Content?
Online advertising has changed. It used to be that Web sites would have a few banner ads or side bar ads to bring in revenue. Then consumers started to use adblockers and other methods to ignore these ads. That’s when…