The Federal Trade Commission along with 48 states in the U.S. filed a lawsuit against social media giant Facebook for acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp, making it a social media monopoly.
Four US senators including a so-called "China hawk" on Friday pressed the Federal Trade Commission to probe accusations that TikTok has violated a consent ruling that protects the privacy of children.
Several "sham" cancer charities run by extended members of the same family spent more than $187 million collected in donations on personal luxuries, CNN reported. The organizations are now the subject of a civil suit brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of all 50 states.
Verizon Wireless's use of so-called supercookies is coming under scrutiny, and Democratic senators on Friday called on federal regulators to investigate the unique tracking codes.
This week, the “study hit the fan” for Facebook, as the world of online media picked up on the controversial Facebook emotion research that we reported early last Saturday and a privacy group filed a formal complaint with the FTC. Meanwhile, Twitter could introduce an integrated “Buy Now” button, Vine added “Loop Counts” and YouTube was found to be more popular than television.
This week in social media, Twitter got pretty bruised by Wall Street, Facebook bought a fitness app and got rid of a couple of its less popular mobile offerings, and Whisper's CEO Michael Heyward duked it out with TechCrunch's Michael Arrington. Meanwhile, Tumblr added a huge swath of customization options to its mobile app and the Federal Trade Commission officially chided Snapchat. It's time for Social Media Saturday!
You've probably heard about the kid that ran up his parents' iTunes bill into the thousands in just minutes, by buying upgrades offered within free games on iOS devices. Karma just caught up to Apple, which has agreed to refund at least $32.5 million to users who were conned by apps that trick kids into spending their money without their consent or knowledge.
