FTC

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - A College Station woman is warning others after she was scammed out of nearly $4,000. She thought she was getting a deal on renting a home but it turned into a nightmare. Last month Cintya Aguilar found a great home on Marquis Drive in Bryan. It...

I had a retiree call me to say she is inundated with calls from “Medicare” asking for her Medicare claim number. She explained that the fraudsters are telling her they are calling and offering free eyeglasses and dental care to be added to her Medicare coverage. “I knew it was...

We've all been busy and in a bit of a fog during this pandemic — trying to manage work, life and, in some cases, schooling from home — that it’s easy to get distracted. That’s exactly what scammers have always counted on: you being busy multi-tasking or just a little distracted as you answer a phone call or look at an email. Then they’ll get you to give them information to avoid the unauthorized charge they’re contacting you about or the sweepstakes that you’ve won, among other tactics.

Samsung’s Galaxy S20 FE turned out to be a pretty big hit in 2020, making a sequel seem like a guarantee. Rumors have placed the debut of that new device in August of this year, but a new report claims that the Galaxy S21 FE’s debut could be in trouble due to the chip shortage.

As Google’s revamp of the platform looms, the second-ever Wear OS smartwatch using the Snapdragon 4100 chipset may be on its way. A video posted to Instagram this week shows a user in Russia who got their hands on a TicWatch E3 ahead of its release, confirming the Snapdragon 4100 among other details.

Jason Nocera anticipated law enforcement authorities might raid his debt collecting business. So he set up surveillance cameras to view the entrance leading to his second-floor business, JCN & Associates, above an Amherst liquor store, federal prosecutors said in court records. The National Consumer Law Center calls Buffalo “an epicenter”...

Eager to test out everything arriving with watchOS 8 like the new Mindfulness app, Focus mode, Photo watch faces with Portrait mode, multiple timers, AssistiveTouch, and more? Read along for how to install watchOS 8 developer beta. Apple unveiled the next major version of watchOS at the WWDC keynote and...

FaceTime got a lot of attention this week, thanks to the new features that are part of iOS 15 and macOS Monterey, which includes screen sharing with friends, live Portrait Mode, better noise cancellation, and even a web version. I was able to try FaceTime on the web for the first time with my 9to5Mac colleague José Adorno, so read on for a first look at how it works on the web.

When it comes to online services, there are a few very large companies whose gravitational effects can alter the entire tech universe. Their size, power, and diverse levers of control mean that there is no single solution that will put right that which they’ve thrown out of balance. One thing is clear—having such large companies with control over so much of our data is not working for users, not working for privacy or freedom of expression, and it’s blocking the normal flow of competition. These giants need to be prevented from using their tremendous power to just buy up competitors, so that they have to actually compete, and so that new competitors are not incentivized to just be be acquired. Above all, these giants need to be pushed to make it easy for users to leave, or to use other tools to interact with their data without leaving entirely.

The US Federal Trade Commission on Friday announced the approval a consent order against Amazon that requires the company to pay $61.7m to resolve charges that for two and a half years it took tips intended for Amazon Flex drivers and concealed the diversion of funds. The deal was proposed...

Back in September, Google’s internal Area 120 incubator launched Tables as a “user-friendly, intuitive work tracking tool.” The Tables team announced today that the service has proven a “success” and that it will become a “fully-supported Google Cloud product” in the next year. Last September, we beta launched Tables in...

Ahead of crowd-based entertainment’s much-anticipated (and fast-approaching) return, fans aren’t hesitating to buy tickets to watch their favorite artists perform live. But pent-up demand – along with the efforts of profit-minded resellers – appears to be drastically inflating the price of passes to events including Springsteen on Broadway. Bruce Springsteen...

House lawmakers on Friday introduced a slew of antitrust bills they say aim to rein in the power and reach of Big Tech companies, but some conservatives are warning that the legislation would give the federal government too much control over the tech sector, while others are concerned the proposals would adversely effect the broader economy and U.S. competitiveness.

These days, it’s hard to get Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree on anything. So it’s notable that Democrats on the Antitrust Subcommittee announced a slew of antitrust legislation today aimed at limiting the power of the tech giants — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, specifically — with some bipartisan support from their Republican colleagues. Collectively called “A Stronger Online Economy: Opportunity, Innovation, and Choice,” each of the five bills introduced has multiple co-sponsors, including at least one from either side of the aisle.

The deal was too good to be true, because it was: A few years ago, MoviePass started offering users unlimited movie tickets for $10 per month. It was an unworkable, growth-focused business model even more extreme than most startups subsidizing post-recession online life, and MoviePass knew it. A Federal Trade Commission investigation found all sorts of shady tactics the company used to keep its most movie-addicted viewers from getting tickets. We’ll talk about it, plus electric trucks, game show history and a new ocean (??) on this not-so-hollowed-out Thursday.

After adding up the figures, the Google Calculator app has now surpassed the 1 billion download milestone over on the Play Store. Given that the Calculator app comes pre-installed on millions of devices each and every year, it’s no surprise that this is one Google app to attain such a download figure. However, according to Android Police, the app install base has potentially doubled since 2019. If that is the case, that’s fairly substantial growth even for an app coming pre-installed on Android smartphones and tablets.