Facebook settlement will make all future privacy changes "opt-in"

Facebook settlement will make all future privacy changes "opt-in"

Quote:

Facebook is close to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that will require the social network to make all future privacy changes "opt-in."

Bring back the FTC Law Book Publishing Guidelines?

Hat tip to Greg Lambert at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog for pointing out this interesting post by Bryan M. Carson. For those who may not remember or are new to the profession, the Federal Trade Commission regulated the law book industry from 1975 to 2000.

Time to Reinstate the FTC’s Guidelines for the Law Book Publishing Industry
Law Librarian Blog
January 4, 2011

Guest post by Bryan M. Carson, J.D., M.I.L.S., Ed.D., Special Assistant to the Dean for Grants & Projects/Coordinator of Reference & Instructional Services, Western Kentucky University Libraries.

FTC issues rules on prerecorded calls

From the press release on the FTC web site:

FTC Issues Final Telemarketing Sales Rule Amendments Regarding Prerecorded Calls
Rule Will Halt Prerecorded Sales Calls Unless the Seller Obtains Consumer's Permission

The Federal Trade Commission today announced two amendments to the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR). One will expressly bar telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages, unless a consumer previously has agreed to accept
such calls from the seller. The other related technical amendment modifies the TSR's method of calculating the maximum permissible level of "call abandonment."

Text of the regulation (16 CFR Part 310) may be found here in PDF format.

FTC nixes pre-texting to get phone records

From the Federal Trade Commission web site:

For Release: May 28, 2008

FTC Permanently Halts ‘Pretexting’ Scheme; Defendants Barred From Obtaining or Selling Consumers’ Phone Records to Third Parties

The Federal Trade Commission has put a permanent halt to an operation that allegedly obtained consumers’ confidential phone records without their knowledge or consent and sold them to third parties. The defendants are barred from obtaining consumers’ telephone records without their consent and court orders impose judgments on the defendants totaling more than $600,000 – the estimated amount of their ill-gotten gains.

This is the latest in a series of FTC cases targeting telephone pretexters – individuals who use false pretenses to obtain consumers’ confidential information. Since 2006 the FTC has charged sixteen individuals and their corporations with violating federal law by pretexting to obtain phone records of third parties. All have now been barred from pretexting and all have been ordered to give up the money they made engaging in the illegal practice.

(cont.)

Federal Trade Commission, Plaintiff, v. Action Research Group, Inc., Joseph Depante, Matthew Depante, Bryan Wagner, Cassandra Selvage, and Eye in the Sky Investigations, Inc., Defendants.
(United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida Orlando Division)
Civil Action No.: 6:07-CV-0227-ORL-22JGG
File No. 072 3021

Link to the case documents

Cell phones and the Do Not Call List

It is true, you may register your phone number on the federal Do Not Call list. Contrary to the occasional round of emails you might receive, cell phone directories are not going to be released to telemarketers in the near future.

For more information, read the press release from the Federal Trade Commission at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/04/dnc.shtm.

The Do Not Call registry is located at https://www.donotcall.gov/.

Watch those receipts

Federal Law Requires All Businesses to Truncate Credit Card Information on Receipts
BeSpacific.com, Dec. 14, 2007.

Links to consumer information about credit card information and fighting identity theft.

Be extra safe - keep all of your receipts and shred them with a good cross-cut shredder. Just make sure you don't need the receipt for returns, rebates, etc. before shredding.

Intelius Cell Phone Directory

I saw a blurb from The Virtual Chase with links to sources on the new Intelius directory of cell phone numbers (https://www.intelius.com/phone-search-name.html). There was also a reference to the national do not call registery (https://www.donotcall.gov/).

I tested the search function. It does show if a number is out there, and where it originates, but so far, the additional details such as name, address, etc. seem to be available only if you pay for it.

Discontinuation of FTC Decisions in Print

From beSpacific today at: http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/015007.html

"The Federal Trade Commission has informed GPO that they will cease the print publication of FTC Decisions. These will be available inelectronic format only beginning with Volume 129. Access to the Decisions is available at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/decisions/index.shtm or via http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS81899. The last volume distributed in print to the FDL's was Volume 128 (FT 1.11:128, item no. 0534) and distributed on Shipping List 2004-0019-S dated 01/12/2004."

ID theft

We had a very good speaker from the Secret Service today at the general meeting. One quick takeaway from the meeting - for additional details about reporting ID theft, go to http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/ for information, forms, etc.