Posts about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness & security training company.
Professor Paul Schwartz (Berkeley School of Law) and I recently published a new book, PRIVACY LAW FUNDAMENTALS. This book is a distilled guide to the essential elements of U.S. data privacy law. In an easily-digestible format, the book covers core concepts, key laws, and leading cases.
So you signed up for the federal Do Not Call List and expect not to receive any more of those annoying telemarketing calls ever again. Think again. Signing up expires after 5 years, so if you signed up back when the list first came into existence, you’ll need to sign up all over again soon. […]
In 2005, a series of data security breaches affected tens of millions of records of personal information. I blogged about them here, here, here, here, and here. One of the major issues with data security breaches involves what kind of notification companies should provide. The spate of data security breach announcements began in February 2005, when ChoicePoint announced its breach […]
You’ve probably seen the commericals, which run incessantly on CNN and other cable channels. A happy young man says: “I’m thinking of a number . . . ” That number is a credit score, which you can obtain at a website called FreeCreditReport.com. You probably have heard that under a new federal law, credit reporting agencies […]
Recently, the FTC announced a settlement in its complaint against the data broker ChoicePoint for a data security breach that resulted in over 160,000 people’s personal information being sold to identity thieves. According to the Washington Post:
The Chicago Sun Times reports: The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts. . . . To test the service, the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to […]
Suppose a company engages in an unfair and deceptive trade practice. It makes about $1 billion. The FTC investigates. A settlement is reached for a fine of $1 million and refunds to only some customers — yielding a net penalty of several million dollars — just a fraction of the spoils. That’s deterrence . . […]
Under the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, the credit reporting agencies must provide a yearly free credit report to individuals who request it. This was one of the benefits given to consumers by the law in return for extending the federal preemption of certain state law regulations.
An article in today’s Washington Post by Jonathan Krim discusses a really disturbing new market of personal data – the numbers people dial on their cell phones. Here’s an excerpt of the article:
The FTC just announced a settlement with BJ’s Wholesale Club, Inc. From the FTC press release: