FTC wants 'pretexting' banned
87011
The Federal Trade Commission has asked a Florida federal court to permanently ban telephone "pretexting" -- the practice of obtaining phone records under false pretenses that came to light during last year's HP boardroom scandal.
192477
(InfoWorld) - Two U.S. representatives have introduced a law that would give the U.S. Federal Trade Commission the authority to investigate and prosecute imposters who gain access to other people's private telephone records. The bill, introduced Wednesday by Representatives Jay Inslee, a Washington Democrat, and Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, comes in addition to a bill signed into law by President George Bush in January criminalizing the phone records scheme known as pretexting. The new pretexting bill is important because the FTC has more expertise and interest in prosecuting identity theft cases than many local prosecutors, a spokeswoman for Inslee said. Ken Springer, the founder and president of Corporate Resolutions, a private investigations firm, applauded the pretexting legislation. State prosecutors have been targeting similar tactics to get personal bank records for about 10 years, and reputable private investigations firms haven't used pretexting for many years, he said. "You've got to play by the rules," said Springer, a former special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "It's not a grey area. You can't use it." Although corporate customers may demand that private investigators use all means necessary, Springer tells clients they should consider that the details of their investigations could wind up in the media. "The risk-reward [balance] is something they should consider," he said. After a pretexting scandal at Hewlett-Packard in late 2006, "corporate America got the message," he said. Still, the new pretexting bill can give customers faith that their records are protected, he said. Inslee and Blackburn introduced a similar bill in January 2006, but it didn't come up for a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. Their Consumer Telephone Records Protection Act would make it illegal for anyone to knowingly obtain confidential phone records by making false or fraudulent statements to a telephone company or to knowingly sell or receive confidential phone records knowing such information was obtained fraudulently. The bill would also require telephone companies to notify customers when their phone records fall into the wrong hands. In January, Bush signed a law making pretexting illegal, punishable with up to 10 years in prison and fines. Fines and prison sentences would increase if the violations involve more than 50 telephone customers. Congress began investigating pretexting in early 2006 after media reports and a complaint from privacy advocacy group the Electronic Privacy Information Center showed that several companies were selling private phone records online for less than $100. Then in September, HP revealed that investigators it hired had used pretexting to try to discover the source of board leaks.Â California prosecutors charged former HP board Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, former HP legal counsel Kevin Hunsaker, and three investigators with feloniesÂ late last year.
30117
During the past few months, the Federal Trade Commission has filed deceptive- advertising cases against two distributors of what is called adware or spyware. The insidious form of software subjects consumers and their computers to unwanted advertising and surveillance.
277105
Sanctions against botnet operators The Federal Trade Commission, the US consumer rights watchdog, has succeeded in shutting down four illegal spamming operations judged to have breached federal anti-spam laws. Targets of the lawsuits included an operation that offered the supposed chance to "date lonely wives" and two outfits that allegedly bombarded unwilling recipients with lurid ads for pornographic web sites, sent via compromised PCs.â¦
443677
The Federal Trade Commission has asked a US District Court to shut down a computer spyware operation. The FTC said Tuesday the operation hijacks computers, secretly changes their
350888
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has filed charges against a payment processing company, accusing it of attempting to debit consumers&#39; bank accounts for up to $200 million on behalf of dishonest merchants.Those consumers either never received the goods or received worthless items, said the FTC, which filed the complaint with seven other U.S. states. The payment company allegedly violated both federal and state consumer fraud laws, telemarketing rules, and FTC regulations regarding the unfair processing of payments.The payment processing company went by several names, which are listed in a FTC news release. The FTC alleges the company processed payments for fraudulent telemarketers and Internet-based merchants that used deceptive sales scripts and methods.About $69 million of the $200 million in transactions were either rejected by consumers or returned because of lack of proper payment authorization, the FTC said.The FTC wants to refund consumers and force the company to forfeit money it still holds from the fraud in addition to other civil penalties. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.The states that have joined the suit are Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, and Vermont.
486035
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)&#160;has settled a complaint with a Web-based company it accused of selling people&#39;s telephone records without permission, the agency said Monday.The settlement with CEO Group, doing business as Check Em Out, bars the company and its operator Scott Joseph from marketing or selling phone records, and it requires the company to give up $25,000 of its profits from selling phone records. Selling phone records to third parties is illegal under federal law, the FTC had charged.The FTC in May 2006 filed complaints in U.S. court against five Web-based companies that obtained and sold confidential phone records to third parties. In addition to the settlement with CEO Group, the FTC has settled two other cases and obtained a default judgment against a fourth company. The complaint against the fifth company is still active.The FTC&#39;s complaints came after complaints from privacy groups and members of the U.S. Congress about pretexting, when someone obtains a telephone customers&#39; records without permission under false pretexts. In many cases, companies offering phone records over the Internet were calling telephone carriers and pretending to be the targeted customer. In September 2006,&#160;Hewlett-Packard revealed it had been spying on some of its board members and journalists in an attempt to uncover the source of boardroom leaks, and HP officials later said their investigators had used pretexting to obtain phone records.The Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits customers&#39; phone records from being disclosed unless &quot;upon affirmative written request by the customer.&quot; The FTC charged the five Web-based companies of engaging in unfair business practices.The settlement with CEO Group prohibits it from obtaining, marketing or selling consumer phone records or other consumer personal information except where allowed by law, the FTC said in a news release. The settlement, approved by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, includes a judgment of $222,381, the amount the company earned by selling phone records, but the defendants said they were able to pay only $25,000. If the court finds that the defendants misrepresented their finances, the entire amount will be due, the FTC said.
78429
Firms should be banned from cold calling door to door the Trading Standards Institute (TSI), says.
358032
(InfoWorld) - An Internet-based provider of sexually explicit entertainment has agreed to pay a $465,000 civil penalty for sending unwanted e-mail, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday. The settlement with TJ Web Productions is the fifth after the FTC announced a crackdown on sexually explicit e-mail spam in July 2005, when the agency charged seven companies with violating a U.S. law requiring warning labels on sexually explicit e-mail. Sexually explicit e-mails sent by TJ Web affiliates have been "widely distributed" since May 2004, according to an FTC complaint. Including the TJ Web settlement, the FTC has collected more than $1.6 million in civil penalties from the five companies, the FTC said. The FTCâs Adult Labeling Rule and the CAN-SPAM Act, passed by Congress in late 2003, require commercial e-mailers of sexually explicit material to use the phrase, "sexually explicit," in the subject line, and to ensure that the initially viewable area of the message does not contain graphic sexual images. The rule and the law also require that unsolicited commercial e-mail give recipients a way to opt out of receiving future e-mail and provide a postal address. Under the proposed settlement, TJ Web is permanently prohibited from violating the FTCâs Adult Labeling Rule. The company also is permanently prohibited from violating the CAN-SPAM Act by initiating commercial e-mail without clearly and conspicuously displaying a physical postal address and also without including an opt-out mechanism. TJ Web, based in Henderson, Nevada, did not send e-mail directly to consumers, but it operated an affiliate marketing program and paid others to send e-mail on its behalf, the FTC said. TJ Web operates "dozens" of adult Web sites containing sexually explicit photographs and videos, according to the FTC complaint. The proposed settlement, which requires court approval, also forces TJ Web to obtain agreement from affiliates that they will comply with the terms of the court order. Although TJ Web has a Web site, there is no contact information listed, nor does the company have a published telephone number, so no one there could be reached for comment.
587873
The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday asked a federal court to shut down an operation that it said disables users&#39; computers in an attempt to bully them into buying anti-spyware products.
559667
Let God sort 'em out The Federal Trade Commission has cautioned against regulations that would ensure telecom providers treat all internet traffic the same way.â¦
690170
Congress has asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to look into spam reduction measures, including a &quot;Do Not Spam&quot; list idea passed with the CAN-SPAM Act.
629926
Privacy advocates want FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras to recuse herself from the agency's review of Google Inc.'s planned $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick because of a possible conflict of interest.
290553
A seamy practice with a slightly annoying name is separating unwary consumers from their banking information, according to a bulletin released by the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center.
134612
A U.S. court in Wyoming has ordered a Web-based information broker to stop selling telephone records without owners&#39; consent and to turn over nearly $200,000 in profits from the operation, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced Monday.AccuSearch, doing business as Abika.com, and owner Jay Patel used &quot;false pretenses, fraudulent statements, fraudulent or stolen documents or other misrepresentations&quot; to induce telecom carriers to disclose the confidential records, the FTC said in a news release.Judge William Downes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming ordered the company to stop selling telephone records in a Dec. 20 decision announced Monday. The judge also ordered the company, based in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to turn over information so that the FTC can notify the people whose telephone records were sold.Abika.com advertised that it could obtain the confidential phone records of any individual -- including details about outgoing and incoming calls -- and make that information available to customers for a fee, the FTC said in a May 2006 complaint. The FTC charged that the company&#39;s methods of obtaining phone records, including posing as a customer of a telecom carrier, violated the FTC Act, which bars unfair business practices.A representative of Abika.com didn&#39;t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company continues to sell such information&#160;as criminal, tax, mortgage, and driving records through its Web site.The defendants have appealed the order to the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.Downes found that the company&#39;s ways of obtaining phone records without consumers&#39; consent was &quot;necessarily accomplished through illegal means,&quot; and that defendants knew that the phone records were being obtained surreptitiously.The company&#39;s actions caused major problems to consumers, including serious health and safety risks experienced by some consumers from stalkers and abusers; economic harm associated with changing telephone carriers and upgrading security on their accounts; and a host of &quot;substantial and real&quot; emotional harms, the judge said.Consumers had no way to avoid these harms, he wrote. &quot;In fact, the evidence presented before the court indicates that confidential consumer phone records were sold through Abika.com despite considerable efforts by consumers to maintain the privacy of those records,&quot; the judge wrote.Finally, the court found no countervailing benefits to consumers or competition that could be derived from the defendants&#39; practice.Downes also rejected the defendants&#39; claimed immunity under the Communications Decency Act, a federal statute that confers immunity on interactive computer service providers for publishing information content provided by a third party. The judge found that the argument failed partly because the defendants participated in creating the content they sought to have immune from prosecution, the FTC said.
747387
The U.S. House Energy and Commerce   Committee will ask wireless company executives and the head of   the Federal Communications Commission to testify Friday on the   use of deceptive measures to obtain personal information, known   as pretexting, the panel said on Monday.
121143
Spam that includes sexually oriented content viewable in the e-mail message violates the &quot;brown paper wrapper&quot; rules that are part of the CAN-SPAM law, as well as Federal Trade Commission rules.