By Brian Crecente

FTC chairman Joseph Simons on Tuesday said he would investigate video game loot boxes to ensure that children are being protected and parents are educated on the matter.

The request comes about nine months after Hassan sent a letter to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board asking for the group to review the rating process as it relates to loot boxes, examine the marketing of loot boxes to children, and put together best practices for developers around the toxic form of microtransactions. The senator also asked the board to conduct a study that further delves into the reach and impact of loot boxes in games. At the time, she said if they didn’t take sufficient action she would ask the FTC to get involved.

“Loot boxes are now endemic in the video game industry and are present in everything from casual smartphone games to the newest, high-budget video game releases. Loot boxes will represent a $50 billion industry by the year 2022, according to the latest research estimates. Children may be particularly susceptible to engaging with these in-game purchases, which are often considered integral components of video games. Just this month Great Britain’s gambling commission released a report finding that 30% of children have used loot boxes in video games. The report further found that this exposure may correlate with a rise of young problem gamblers in the United Kingdom. Belgium, Netherlands, and Japan have moved to regulate the use of loot boxes in video games given this close link to gambling.

Read the full article here.

Here’s How To Make Sure You, Your Business and Website Are FTC & GDPR Compliant

By now it should be clear how important it is for you to be FTC compliant. But how can you do that without spending $7,500-$8,000 or more on Internet Attorneys?

Smart business owners around the world are doing it with the help of FTC Guardian.

FTC Guardian is a service that is 100% focused on helping to keep you get and stay FTC & GDPR compliant and fully protected. And right now, we are offering a free training to give you the knowledge, information, and guidance that you need to stay out of trouble with the Federal Trade Commission and the new GDPR guidelines.

Free Compliance Workshop: Join Chip Cooper, Esq., the #1 FTC Compliance & GDPR trainer in the World, for a one-of-kind, completely free online compliance workshop.

Workshops fill up quickly, so register now.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover on the training:

• Real-Life Examples of People Who Didn’t Think They Were At Risk, But Who Got Nailed By The FTC, And Why It Could Happen To You, Too

• The 3 Enormous Powers The FTC Has That Can Change Your Life – And Your Family’s Life – Forever!

• How to Avoid FTC Claims When Collecting Leads With Optin Forms

• 3 Privacy Policy Mistakes Every Digital Marketer Is Making, And Why You’re In The FTC Crosshairs.

• And Much More…

Remember: legal protection is a massively important part of your business, and it’s one you cannot afford to ignore any longer.

Go here to register for our next FREE training and make your business is FTC compliant today!

Disclaimer:  This article is provided for informational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Neither the author nor FTC Guardian, Inc. is endorsed by the Federal Trade Commission.

By David Nield

The little pocket supercomputers we all constantly carry around with us aren’t just supplying us with useful information, they’re also collecting a host of data on us and our habits, all of the time. Here’s a guide to what gets collected by your smartphone and the apps running on it, and how you can take back some control.

Sensors, Android, and iOS

Your smartphone is packed with sensors, monitoring where you are in the world, how fast you’re moving through space, which way up you’re holding your phone, and more. All of this data is used by apps to improve the user experience—so making sure your phone apps switch between landscape and portrait modes, and keeping you on the right route for your commute—but how much of this data is logged and stored is largely up to the choices of the handset manufacturer.

Smartphone apps

On top of the basic information collected by your smartphone and beamed back (or not beamed back) to the company that made your handset, there’s all the information collected by the apps you run too—the data that gets recorded and saved is down to an individual app’s privacy policies and the permissions you give it.

Read full article and learn more about Data and Privacy Policy here.

Here’s How To Make Sure You, Your Business & Website Is FTC Compliant

By now it should be clear how important it is for you to be FTC compliant. But how can you do that without spending $7,500-$8,000 or more on Internet Attorneys?

Smart business owners around the world are doing it with the help of FTC Guardian.

FTC Guardian is a service that is 100% focused on helping to keep you get and stay FTC compliant and fully protected. And right now, we are offering a free training to give you the knowledge, information, and guidance that you need to stay out of trouble with the Federal Trade Commission.

Free Compliance Workshop: Join Chip Cooper, Esq., the #1 FTC Compliance trainer in the World, for a one-of-kind, completely free online compliance workshop. Workshops fill up quickly, so register now.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover on the training:

• Real-Life Examples of People Who Didn’t Think They Were At Risk, But Who Got Nailed By The FTC, And Why It Could Happen To You, Too

• The 3 Enormous Powers The FTC Has That Can Change Your Life – And Your Family’s Life – Forever!

• How to Avoid FTC Claims When Collecting Leads With Optin Forms

• 3 Privacy Policy Mistakes Every Digital Marketer Is Making, And Why You’re In The FTC Crosshairs.

• And Much More…

Remember: legal protection is a massively important part of your business, and it’s one you cannot afford to ignore any longer.

Go here to register for our next FREE training and make your business is FTC compliant today!

Disclaimer:  This article is provided for informational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Neither the author nor FTC Guardian, Inc. is endorsed by the Federal Trade Commission.

Popular apps and websites reserve the right to sell your anonymized data

By Nick Vega

Last month, most people learned through a New York Times story that the email decluttering service Unroll.me had been selling anonymized customer data to third parties.

Specifically, Unroll.me had reportedly analyzed Lyft receipt data from users' email inboxes, then sold that data to Uber. Unroll.me would not confirm the specific transactions with Business Insider, but did say it routinely sells data in this way to third parties, which is how the site makes money.

Unroll.Me's pointed to the company's plain-English privacy policy to show that there was no effort to conceal what the company was doing, but customers were nonetheless upset. Many felt that their trust had been betrayed, and that they had been misled.

In the wake of this story, we decided to go through the privacy policies of several popular applications and websites to see what they do with users' anonymized data. To be clear, inclusion on this list does not mean that a company is actively selling users' anonymized, non-identifiable data; several companies responded to our inquiries to clarify that they do not do this. However, we asked an attorney to look over these privacy policies, and he was able to confirm that the language keeps the options for these companies to sell your data at a later date.

In the statement, Snapchat assured users that they were not storing user content indefinitely.

“The Snaps and Chats you send your friends remain as private today as they were before the update,” the statement read. The company further elaborated that while messages were deleted from Snapchat’s servers after viewing, the company had no control over screenshots or pictures taken by their recipients.

It’s worth noting that the updated terms of service were far from ambiguous when it came to content rights, which just shows you the power of unsubstantiated internet rumors.

“When you do that, you retain whatever ownership rights in that content you had to begin with,” read Snapchat’s Terms of Service, in reference to content that is uploaded onto the company’s servers.

Public outcry after changes in Terms of Service is hardly new. Instagram rolled back changes to their Ad terms after angering users late in 2012. In similar circumstances, the outcry over Instagram’s new policies was related to user worries about content ownership.

While Snapchat continues to maintain a policy of not sharing message contents with advertisers or other business partners, its Terms of Service does give it significant usage rights over content sent over the app.

“We need that license when it comes to, for example, Snaps submitted to Live Stories, where we have to be able to show those Stories around the world—and even replay them or syndicate them,” the company added in the statement. Snapchat’s right to use content in this manner has been a part of their Terms of Service since the company’s inception.
Snapchat’s statement also clarified some reasons for the updated Terms of Service. Other than linguistic simplification, the new terms enable Snapchat to sell replays on messages. This language on in-app purchases paves the way for new paid and promoted content, something that Snapchat will need for their long drive towards profitability.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/01/snapchat-responds-privacy-policy-change/

Here’s How To Make Sure You,
Your Business & Website Is FTC Compliant

By now it should be clear how important it is for you to be FTC compliant. But how can you do that without spending $7,500-$8,000 or more on Internet Attorneys?

Smart business owners around the world are doing it with the help of FTC Guardian.

FTC Guardian is a service that is 100% focused on helping to keep you get and stay FTC compliant and fully protected. And right now, we are offering a free training to give you the knowledge, information, and guidance that you need to stay out of trouble with the Federal Trade Commission.

The training is titled: 3 Tragic (Legal) Privacy Policy List Building Mistakes That Can Get You In Hot Water With The FTC Today – Resulting In Your Business Being Shut Down… And How To Solve It!

Here are some of the things you’ll discover on the training:

• Real-Life Examples of People Who Didn’t Think They Were At Risk, But Who Got Nailed By The FTC, And Why It Could Happen To You, Too

• Why 2014 Was a Significant Year For Online Businesses, And Why You Should Be Worried!

• The 3 Enormous Powers The FTC Has That Can Change Your Life – And Your Family’s Life – Forever!

• How to Avoid FTC Claims When Collecting Leads With Optin Forms

• 3 Privacy Policy Mistakes Every Digital Marketer Is Making, And Why You're In The FTC Crosshairs.

• And Much More…

Remember: legal protection is a massively important part of your business, and it’s one you cannot afford to ignore any longer.

Go here to register for our next FREE training and make your business is FTC compliant today!

Disclaimer:  This article is provided for informational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Neither the author nor FTC Guardian, Inc. is endorsed by the Federal Trade Commission.

Most Kids' Apps Fall Short On Privacy Disclosures

via Most Kids' Apps Still Fall Short On Privacy Disclosures, FTC Says

Here’s How To Make Sure You,
Your Business & Website Is FTC Compliant

By now it should be clear how important it is for you to be FTC compliant. But how can you do that without spending $7,500-$8,000 or more on Internet Attorneys?

Smart business owners around the world are doing it with the help of FTC Guardian.

FTC Guardian is a service that is 100% focused on helping to keep you get and stay FTC compliant and fully protected. And right now, we are offering a free training to give you the knowledge, information, and guidance that you need to stay out of trouble with the Federal Trade Commission.

The training is titled: 3 Tragic (Legal) Privacy Policy List Building Mistakes That Can Get You In Hot Water With The FTC Today – Resulting In Your Business Being Shut Down… And How To Solve It!

Here are some of the things you’ll discover on the training:

• Real-Life Examples of People Who Didn’t Think They Were At Risk, But Who Got Nailed By The FTC, And Why It Could Happen To You, Too

• Why 2014 Was a Significant Year For Online Businesses, And Why You Should Be Worried!

• The 3 Enormous Powers The FTC Has That Can Change Your Life – And Your Family’s Life – Forever!

• How to Avoid FTC Claims When Collecting Leads With Optin Forms

• 3 Privacy Policy Mistakes Every Digital Marketer Is Making, And Why You're In The FTC Crosshairs.

• And Much More…

Remember: legal protection is a massively important part of your business, and it’s one you cannot afford to ignore any longer.

Go here to register for our next FREE training and make your business is FTC compliant today!

Disclaimer:  This article is provided for informational purposes only. It’s not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Neither the author nor FTC Guardian, Inc. is endorsed by the Federal Trade Commission.