Posts Tagged: "deceptive trade practices"

An online advertising company agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it used “history sniffing” to secretly and illegally gather data from millions of consumers about their interest in sensitive medical and financial issues ranging from fertility and incontinence to debt relief and personal bankruptcy. The FTC settlement order bars the company, Epic Marketplace Inc., from continuing to use history sniffing technology, which allows online operators to “sniff” a browser to see what sites consumers have visited in the past.

Yet another ad that the FTC took issue with was one featuring celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Brooke Burke, which aired during the 2011 Super Bowl. In the ad Kardashian is showed dumping her personal trainer for a pair of Shape-ups. In the Burke ad consumers were told that the newest way to burn calories, tone and strengthen muscles was to tie their Shape-ups shoe laces. Clearly, the message is that you don’t need to work out if you wear Shape-ups, which turns out to be untrue. What a surprise! Frankly, I’m not sure that these ads deserved the ire of the FTC.

This week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it had preliminarily reached a settlement with Dyna-E International and its owner George Wheeler, which would bar the retailer of rayon towels from making false and misleading claims that dupe consumers into believing its paper towels are biodegradable. under a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. This preliminary settlement is now…