tagged w/ FTC
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The proposed amendments would modify the Rule in five areas: definitions, parental notice, parental consent mechanisms, confidentiality and security of children’s personal information, and safe harbor programs. Each may have a significant impact on a company’s current online practices...
https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/16575-FTC-Proposes-Revisions-to-COPPA-Rule.htmlThe proposed amendments would modify the Rule in five areas: definitions, parental... more
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed several revisions to its ”Green Guides” that help companies avoid making misleading environmental claims.
Some of the biggest proposed changes (PDF) include new guidance on marketers’ use of product certifications and seals of approval, as well as claims for renewable energy, renewable materials, and carbon offsets.
The revised Green Guides advise marketers not to make blanket or general claims that a product is “environmentally friendly” or “eco-friendly,” as well as caution them not to use unqualified certifications or seals of approval and that the certifications or seals should be specific and clear.
“Clearly this means that marketers are going to have to provide more proof and provide it at point of sales for certain common environmental claims that they are making. If something is claimed to be environmentally-friendly, they are going to have to prove the why and find a place on their package or shelf to do it. Doing it on their Website isn’t good enough, according to what the FTC is saying,” said Mike Lawrence, chief reputation officer for Cone LLC in Boston, Mass.
Lawrence also noted that this level of disclosure goes beyond what many environmental marketers have been doing, and perhaps beyond what many of them would like to do.
“FTC is clearly sending a signal to business that they aren’t trying to stop or significantly inhibit this type of marketing communications but rather channel it into a place that solves some of the problems without making advertisers’ and marketers’ lives too much harder,” Lawrence said. “If marketers are upset with this, they shouldn’t be. They got off easy.”
According to the Ecolabel Index, there are currently 349 seals and certifications for marketing green products worldwide, with 88 used in North America alone, reports the New York Times.
Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC told The New York Times, referring to customers, that “in the last five years or so there’s been an explosion of green claims and environmental claims. It’s clear that they don’t always know what they are getting.”
According to Cone’s 2010 Shared Responsibility Study, 92 percent of consumers want companies to tell them what they’re doing to improve their products, services and operations; however, 87 percent of respondents believe that they only share positive data about their efforts and 67 percent are confused by the messages companies use to talk about their social and environmental commitments.
Last year, the 2009 Conscious Consumer Report from BBMG found that that there were so many seals and certifications related to “green” and environmental attributes of products and services that many such marks risk losing their effectiveness.
In August, Christopher Cole, an advertising-law specialist and partner with law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips in Washington, told Advertising Age that the green guides could influence efforts by retailers such as Walmart to institute a sustainability-rating system for products.
Another proposed change advises marketers how consumers are likely to understand certain environmental claims, including that a product is degradable, compostable, or “free of” a particular substance.
They also will provide advice on claims not currently addressed in current guides including claims about renewable materials, renewable energy and carbon offsets.
The new guides come at a time when the FTC is beefing up its enforcement. So far, the FTC has brought seven environmental advertising enforcement actions under the Obama administration, compared to zero during the eight years of the Bush administration, according to the article.
In June last year, the FTC charged Kmart Corp., Tender Corp., and Dyna-E International with making false and unsubstantiated claims that their paper products were “biodegradable.”
In August 2009, the FTC also charged four companies — Sami Designs LLC, dba Jonäno; CSE Inc., Mad Mod and Pure Bamboo LLC and the M Group – selling clothing marketed as made from bamboo with deceptive advertising and marketing claims.
The FTC isn’t the only organization watching green claims. Last month, The National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus recommended that Seventh Generation either modify or discontinue certain advertising claims for the company’s household cleaning and laundry products. This came after the products were challenged by Procter & Gamble.
NAD also found issues with Chlorox for its Clorox Green Works line.
The FTC is seeking public comments on the proposed changes until December 10, 2010, after which it will decide which changes to make final.The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed several revisions to its ”Green... more
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The National Consumers League (NCL) has approached the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with a complaint against the claims made in the advertisements of Vitaminwater.The National Consumers League (NCL) has approached the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)... more
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Alstom
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Chris Martin,comedy,comic,comedian,stand-up,Dennis Hopper,David Carradine,Manute Bole,Jimmy Dean,Cracker Barrel,Gary Coleman,Manute Bole,Starbucks,six shot,espresso,Civet,Alzheimer's,Jamie Lee Curtis,Activia,FTC,Rice Krispies,Count Chocula,World Cup,narcopepsy,Chelsie Handler,Lisa Lampanelli,Elton John,Rush Limbaugh
Chris Martin ComedyChris Martin,comedy,comic,comedian,stand-up,Dennis Hopper,David Carradine,Manute... more
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12-01) 12:01 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --
FTC proposes Do Not Track tool for Web marketing
Federal regulators are proposing to create a "Do Not Track" tool for the Internet so that consumers could prevent marketers from tracking their Web browsing habits and other behavior in order to target advertising.
The proposal, inspired by the government's existing "Do Not Call" registry for telemarketers, is among the recommendations outlined in a privacy report released Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission. The report lays out a broad framework for protecting consumer privacy both online and offline as personal data collection becomes ubiquitous — often without consumer knowledge.
The FTC hopes the report will help guide the marketing industry as it develops self-regulatory principles to define acceptable corporate behavior. The FTC also is trying to influence lawmakers and other policymakers as they draft new rules of the road to protect privacy. The agency has limited authority to write those rules itself, so new regulations would likely require congressional action.
Protecting consumer privacy, the agency says, is critical since marketers — particularly online marketers — are increasingly analyzing the websites that consumers visit, the links they click, Internet searches, online and offline purchases, the physical locations of wireless devices and all sorts of personal information disclosed on social networking sites
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/12/01/national/w080608S10.DTL#ixzz16tRS087w
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/12/01/national/w080608S10.DTL12-01) 12:01 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --
FTC proposes Do Not Track tool for Web marketing... more
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The media industry may be in upheaval as a result of the web, but having the government step in isn’t the right response, Google has told the Federal Trade Commission. The search company’s comments are a response to the FTC’s draft proposal, released last month, on policy changes to support the media business and journalism in particular. The draft document includes proposed changes to intellectual property laws to protect news entities from aggregators (such as Google News), a loosening of anti-trust laws to allow media outlets to collaborate on paywalls and other methods of charging for the news, as well as a proposal for government subsidization of the industry.
In a blog post on the Google Public Policy blog, public policy director Pablo Chavez said that while the Internet has presented challenges for traditional publishers, Google is “optimistic about the news industry’s future.” But Chavez said the company strongly disagrees with many of the recommendations in the FTC draft paper, including the suggestion that the government should enact a “hot news doctrine” — that is, legislation that would prevent others from reporting the same facts as a traditional publisher for a period of time after a news event. In effect, this would alter the principles of fair use under existing copyright law.
The concept of “hot news” protection for publishers dates back to 1918, when the Associated Press newswire sued a rival wire for republishing information from AP’s reporters, claiming the other newswire rewrote its stories and distributed them via telegraph. The Supreme Court sided with AP, but the resulting law has been rarely used — although the wire service did employ it last year to go after a news aggregator called All Headline News. The FTC paper proposes this principle become an explicit part of federal law, along with other changes to the concept of fair use.
Chavez said that a hot news law “would not only hurt free expression, but also the very profession of journalism that the proponents of hot news say they support.” Such a change would also make it virtually impossible for aggregators such as Google News and Yahoo News to function the way they currently do, publishing excerpts from news stories without explicit permission from media outlets. In its submission to the FTC, Google also noted that its AdSense platform “helps publishers generate revenue from their content by providing relevant advertising and improving the connection between advertisers and consumers,” and noted that in 2009 alone, Google shared more than $5 billion in revenue with its AdSense partners. The company also noted that many newspapers use Google‘s DoubleClick ad platform on their websites.
http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/workshops/ftc100/images/ftc100logo.gifThe media industry may be in upheaval as a result of the web, but having the... more
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Can we trust the opinions of media who accept junkets? Can we even trust those who don't?Can we trust the opinions of media who accept junkets? Can we even trust those who... more
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ForestEthics : Protect Forests and Our Climate
Notice Advises of Deceptive Claims by “Sustainable Forestry Initiative”
Greenwashing by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is again under harsh scrutiny, this time in a trend-setting eco-conscious magazine and in the mailboxes of its target markets.
On March 5th, ForestEthics mailed letters to Fortune 500 companies that rely heavily on direct mail to market their products and services, including companies from the insurance, financial services and telecommunications sectors.
Citing the growing public controversy about SFI's deceptive 'green' marketing practices, the letters offer ForestEthics' expertise to help companies find legitimate ways to safeguard their brands and promote the environmental attributes of their products.
"SFI's greenwashing could be toxic for any brand associated with it," said Aaron Sanger of ForestEthics. "SFI is spending millions of dollars to market business as usual environmental destruction as 'green', and these misleading claims undermine the hard work and smart choices of any business making a sincere effort to be environmentally responsible."
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In September when ForestEthics filed legal complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that became the focus of an article in the New York Times on September 12.
In October, the Sierra Club also filed a complaint with SFI, presenting scientific evidence that SFI certified logging by Weyerhaeuser on extremely steep and unstable mountainsides in SW Washington despite publicly available evidence that these areas were prone to landslides. In a major regional rainstorm in December 2007, massive landslides did occur on logging sites certified by SFI as sustainable, producing downstream logjams and record flooding.
In its FTC complaint, ForestEthics described how SFI, funded and managed primarily by large logging companies, gives its seal of approval to the logging practices of these same companies that harm people and wildlife, damage water resources and destroy forests.
The report submitted to the IRS focused on SFI's nonprofit status, as SFI's funding and activities serve the private interests of wood and paper companies that want a 'green' image. This is not a proper purpose for an organization with the same nonprofit status that the IRS gives to public charities.
http://www.forestethics.org/fortune-500-companies-warned-of-greenwash-riskForestEthics : Protect Forests and Our Climate
Notice Advises of Deceptive Claims... more
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Microsoft HealthVault is designed to let us collect, store, and share health information critical to our family’s well-being and Google Health allows us to organize our health information all in one place, gather our medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies, and share our information securely with a family member, doctors or caregiver. For now, I probably won’t start trusting my medical history to either Microsoft or Google…
http://information-security-resources.com/2010/01/11/on-managing-your-own-health-records/Microsoft HealthVault is designed to let us collect, store, and share health... more
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Individuals that wish to engage in this type of scam typically post an advertisement on the internet or in a newspaper that details the type of structure and property they wish to rent to an interested party. In most all cases, the rental is advertised at an unnaturally low price. This ensures the advertisement draws interest. Once a potential renter contacts the individual, they will request an upfront security deposit and will promise to send the key and legal documentation. Unfortunately, at that point, contact is lost along with the money that has been sent.
In this how-to article, you will learn the basic steps in avoiding rental property scams.To learn more about how to avoid rental property scams and other types of scams, visit the Lionheart Group blog at http://www.LionheartGroup.net.Individuals that wish to engage in this type of scam typically post an advertisement... more
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Individuals that wish to engage in this type of scam typically post an advertisement on the internet or in a newspaper that details the type of structure and property they wish to rent to an interested party. In most all cases, the rental is advertised at an unnaturally low price. This ensures the advertisement draws interest. Once a potential renter contacts the individual, they will request an upfront security deposit and will promise to send the key and legal documentation. Unfortunately, at that point, contact is lost along with the money that has been sent.
In this how-to article, you will learn the basic steps in avoiding rental property scams.To learn more about how to avoid rental property scams and other types of scams, visit the Lionheart Group blog at http://www.LionheartGroup.net.Individuals that wish to engage in this type of scam typically post an advertisement... more
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These new regulations come at a time when healthcare breaches are on the rise; according to the 2009 ITRC Breach Stats Report healthcare breaches account for over 66 percent of all records breached this year, up from 20 percent in 2008. In fact, some of the largest names in healthcare suffered data breaches.
http://information-security-resources.com/2009/11/12/hitech-act-and-protecting-health-privacy/These new regulations come at a time when healthcare breaches are on the rise;... more
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Do surviving relatives have a right to read their deceased son’s, daughter’s, husband’s or wife’s communications with other people whose lives could then subsequently be completely altered as a result? What would your email service providers do with all your messages? Who should make that decision, and when should that decision be made?Do surviving relatives have a right to read their deceased son’s,... more
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