Federal Trade Commission

FTC Raises AI-related Competition and Consumer Protection Issues
In a comment submitted to the US Copyright Office, the Federal Trade Commission identified several issues raised by the development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that implicate competition and consumer protection policy, noting the FTC’s role in monitoring the impact of generative AI and vigorously enforcing the law as appropriate to protect competition and consumers. The comment explains that the FTC has an interest in copyright-related issues beyond questions about the scope of rights and the extent of liability under the copyright laws.
Amazon Boosted Junk Ads, Deleted Messages to Thwart Antitrust Probe (Federal Trade Commission)
Submitted by benton on Thu, 11/02/2023 - 12:48FTC Action Leads to $18 Million in Refunds for Personal Finance App Brigit Consumers (Federal Trade Commission)
Submitted by benton on Thu, 11/02/2023 - 12:46FTC Sends Nearly $100 Million in Refunds to Vonage Consumers Who Were Trapped in Subscriptions By Dark Patterns and Junk Fees (Federal Trade Commission)
Submitted by benton on Mon, 10/30/2023 - 13:49
FTC Releases Protecting Older Consumers 2022-2023 Report
The Federal Trade Commission has issued its latest report to Congress on protecting older adults, which highlights key trends based on fraud reports by older adults, and the FTC’s multi-pronged efforts to combat the problem through law enforcement actions, rulemaking, and outreach and education programs. The report finds that older adults reported losing more than $1.6 billion to fraud in 2022. The report’s analysis shows that older adults filed the largest number of reports about online frauds—where consumers were first exposed to the fraud via social media, the web, or online ads.
FTC Proposes Rule to Ban Junk Fees
The Federal Trade Commission announced a new proposed rule to prohibit junk fees, which are hidden and bogus fees that can harm consumers and undercut honest businesses. The FTC has estimated that these fees can cost consumers tens of billions of dollars per year in unexpected costs.