Lenovo will pay a $3.5 million fine for preinstalling adware on certain laptops

Lenovo came under fire a few years ago for pre-installing adware called VisualDiscovery (developed by Superfish) onto new machines. Now that the legal dust has settled, the laptop maker has agreed to pay $3.5 million in fines to a 32-state coalition...

YouTube stars are blurring the lines between content and ads

Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner are just some of the celebrities under the microscope for using social media to shamelessly plug sponsored products. Advertising without proper disclosures has become a growing problem with in...

Instagram gives social media influencers the benefit of the doubt

The chaos surrounding the cancelled Fyre Festival is a perfect example of how social media influencers can misguide consumers. Instagram users were led to believe they would be rubbing shoulders with supermodels like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid in...

Amazon refunds $70 million your kids accidentally spent in apps

Last year, a federal judge ruled Amazon was on the hook for tens of millions of dollars worth of unauthorized in-app purchases made by kids in free-to-play apps. This week, the online retail giant officially started issuing over $70 million in refund...

Instagram influencers fanned the flames of Fyre Festival hype

When tech entrepreneur Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule (born Jeffrey Atkins) created Fyre Festival, a music event in the Bahamas for the selfie generation, they never imaged their idea would be on the receiving end of six fraud and negligence clas...

Your kid’s ‘accidental’ Amazon app spending will be refunded soon

It's finally time to put a bow on Amazon's case with the Federal Trade Commission. In 2014, the online shopping juggernaut cam under fire for not fully warning parents that free apps could still contain in-app purchases. Last year a federal judge rul...

The government plans to crack down on sketchy advertorial

The Federal Trade Commission is going back to an old well, and possibly will actually exercise some of its authority. We're talking about the FTC's stance on sponsored editorial posts that aren't clearly labeled as such. "The FTC will soon begin hold...